Maternal Effects in a Wild Songbird Are Environmentally Plastic but Only Marginally Alter the Rate of Adaptation

Abstract

Original citationRamakers, J. J., Cobben, M. M., Bijma, P., Reed, T. E., Visser, M. E. We tested the degree to which MEs can alter the rate of adaptation of a key life-history trait, clutch size, using an individualbased model approach parameterized with experimental data from a long-term study of great tits (Parus major). We modeled two types of MEs: (i) an environmentally plastic ME, in which the relationship between maternal and offspring clutch size depended on the maternal environment via offspring condition, and (ii) a fixed ME, in which this relationship was constant. Although both types of ME affected the rate of adaptation following an abrupt environmental shift, the overall effects were small. We conclude that evolutionary consequences of MEs are modest at best in our study system, at least for the trait and the particular type of ME we considered here. A closer link between theoretical and empirical work on MEs would hence be useful to obtain accurate predictions about the evolutionary consequences of MEs more generally.

The more you get, the more you give: Positive cascading effects shape the evolutionary potential of prenatal maternal investment

“…; Ramakers et al. ). Therefore, despite litter size having a heritable basis and being under positive directional selection, the maternal environment it provides hinders its own response to selection.…”

“…; Ramakers et al. ) and reach a smaller adult size, which in turn results in smaller litters when these offspring reproduce themselves (Falconer ; Schluter and Gustafsson ; Jarrett et al. ; Ramakers et al.…”

The role of maternally transferred antibodies in maternal performance in red deer

“…Studies aiming to shed light on the pathways through which maternal effects occur in nature are essential to improve models of maternal effects (McGlothlin & Brodie, 2009). For instance, they enable us to explicitly model plasticity of interacting phenotypes (Ramakers et al, 2018) or to account for ‘cascading maternal effects’ (Pick et al, 2019), that occur when a trait causing maternal effects is itself affected by maternal effects. The approach we developed here could be applied to other species and traits potentially underlying maternal effects.…”

The more you get, the more you give: Positive cascading effects shape the evolutionary potential of prenatal maternal investment

“…Cascading maternal effects may represent an important form of non-genetic inheritance (Danchin et al 2011), with interesting evolutionary dynamics. Offspring from larger litters, for example, typically grow more slowly (Falconer 1965;Schluter and Gustafsson 1993;McAdam et al 2002;Wilson et al 2005b;Ramakers et al 2018) and reach a smaller adult size, which in turn results in smaller litters when these offspring reproduce themselves (Falconer 1965;Schluter and Gustafsson 1993;Jarrett et al 2017;Ramakers et al 2018). Therefore, despite litter size having a heritable basis and being under positive directional selection, the maternal environment it provides hinders its own response to selection.…”