Paternal social enrichment effects on maternal behavior and offspring growth

Abstract

Paternal environmental experiences are significant predictors of developmental outcomes in offspring and can occur even in the absence of paternal care. Although there has been a recent focus on the role of environmentally induced changes in the male germline in producing these effects, the potential mediating role of mothers has not been investigated. A role for mothers in the transmission of paternal effects has been well acknowledged in behavioral ecology, which predicts that females will dynamically adjust their reproductive investment in response to the qualities of their mate. In the present study, we show that a lifetime of socially enriched compared with impoverished housing conditions shifts anxiety-like behavior and gene expression of male mice. Females that mate with enriched-reared males exhibit increased levels of pup nursing and licking toward their offspring, which are associated with changes in gene expression within the maternal hypothalamus. Significantly, these changes in maternal behavior are correlated with the general levels of anxiety exhibited by their male mates. Further, we show that paternal environmental enrichment results in increased growth of their offspring. These results suggest that maternal-paternal interactions at mating may guide offspring development, with significant implications for the transgenerational transmission of paternal environmental experiences.differential allocation | fitness | maternal care | parental effects

Drinking beyond a lifetime: New and emerging insights into paternal alcohol exposure on subsequent generations

“…Notably, perturbations to the paternal environment can influence maternal investment in offspring care, a concept termed maternal provisioning. For example, offspring of sires exposed to social enrichment were licked and nursed by dams more frequently than those of sires raised in isolation (Mashoodh, Franks, Curley, & Champagne, 2012). Along these lines, some paternal effects on offspring phenotypes disappear after in vitro fertilization (Dietz et al, 2011).…”

Paternal care in a fish: epigenetics and fitness enhancing effects on offspring anxiety

“…owing to transgenerational plasticity). Parents might adjust their investment in offspring care based on the environment they have experienced [27], or even the environment their partner had experienced [28]. In sticklebacks, maternal predator-exposure has a number of negative consequences for offspring [29,30] and thus it is possible that differences among families in anxiety are driven by maternal identity or experiences.…”

Toward a new biology of social adversity

“…Such observations lie at the heart of current efforts to describe and understand the genesis of deviations from normative development and alterations in physical and mental health. Mashoodh et al (36) report an evolutionarily important finding that prior paternal experience in the rat can influence offspring development, even in the absence of paternal care or presence, by affecting mothers' postpartum care of their young. Burns et al (37) provide a strong example of gene-by-environment (GxE) interaction in the fly that is explicated to the level of a specific gene, acting within a specific brain region.…”