Maternal effects on phenotypic plasticity in larvae of the salamander Hynobius retardatus

Unique maternal and environmental effects on the body morphology of the Least Killifish, Heterandria formosa

An important step in diagnosing local adaptation is the demonstration that phenotypic variation among populations is at least in part genetically based. To do this, many methods experimentally minimize the environmental effect on the phenotype to elucidate the genetic effect. Minimizing the environmental effect often includes reducing possible environmental maternal effects. However, maternal effects can be an important factor in patterns of local adaptation as well as adaptive plasticity. Here, we report the results of an experiment with males from two populations of the poeciliid fish, Heterandria formosa, designed to examine the relative influence of environmental maternal effects and environmental effects experienced during growth and development on body morphology, and, in addition, whether the balance among those effects is unique to each population. We used a factorial design that varied thermal environment and water chemistry experienced by mothers and thermal environment and water chemistry experienced by offspring. We found substantial differences between the two populations in their maternal and offspring norms of reaction of male body morphology to differences in thermal environment and water chemistry. We also found that the balance between maternal effects and postparturition environmental effects differed from one thermal regime to another and among traits. These results indicate that environmental maternal effects can be decidedly population-specific and, as a result, might either contribute to the appearance of or blur evidence for local adaptation. These results also suggest that local adaptation might also occur through the evolution of maternal norms of reaction to important, and varying, environmental factors.

An interaction-driven cannibalistic reaction norm

Cannibalism is induced in larval-stage populations of the Hokkaido salamander, Hynobius retardatus, under the control of a cannibalism reaction norm. Here, I examined phenotypic expression under the cannibalism reaction norm, and how the induction of a cannibalistic morph under the norm leads to populational morphological diversification. I conducted a set of experiments in which density was manipulated to be either low or high. In the high-density treatment, the populations become dimorphic with some individuals developing into the cannibal morph type. I performed an exploratory analysis based on geometric morphometrics and showed that shape characteristics differed between not only cannibal and noncannibal morph types in the high-density treatment but also between those morph types and the solitary morph type in the low-density treatment. Size and shape of cannibal and noncannibal individuals were found to be located at either end of a continuum of expression following a unique size-shape integration rule that was different from the rule governing the size and shape variations of the solitary morph type. This result implies that the high-density-driven inducible morphology of an individual is governed by a common integration rule during the development of dimorphism under the control of the cannibalism reaction norm. Phenotypic expression under the cannibalism reaction norm is driven not only by population density but also by social interactions among the members of a population: variation in the populational expression of dimorphism is associated with contingent social interaction events among population members. The induced cannibalistic morph thus reflects not only by contest-type exploitative competition but also interference competition.

Population Structure and Evolution after Speciation of the Hokkaido Salamander (Hynobius retardatus)

The Hokkaido salamander (Hynobius retardatus) is endemic to Hokkaido Island, Japan, and shows intriguing flexible phenotypic plasticity and regional morphological diversity. However, to date, allozymes and partial mitochondria DNA sequences have provided only an outline of its demographic histories and the pattern of its genetic diversification. To understand the finer details of the population structure of this species and its evolution since speciation, we genotyped five regional populations by using 12 recently developed microsatellite polymorphic markers. We found a clear population structure with low gene flow among the five populations, but a close genetic relationship between the Teshio and Kitami populations. Our demographic analysis suggested that Teshio and Erimo had the largest effective population sizes among the five populations. These findings regarding the population structure and demography of H. retardatus improve our understanding of the faunal phylogeography on Hokkaido Island and also provide fundamental genetic information that will be useful for future studies.

Maternal body condition influences magnitude of anti-predator response in offspring

Organisms exhibit plasticity in response to their environment, but there is large variation even within populations in the expression and magnitude of response. Maternal influence alters offspring survival through size advantages in growth and development. However, the relationship between maternal influence and variation in plasticity in response to predation risk is unknown. We hypothesized that variation in the magnitude of plastic responses between families is at least partly due to maternal provisioning and examined the relationship between maternal condition, egg provisioning and magnitude of plastic response to perceived predation risk (by dragonfly larvae: Aeshna spp.) in northern leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens). Females in better body condition tended to lay more (clutch size) larger (egg diameter) eggs. Tadpoles responded to predation risk by increasing relative tail depth (morphology) and decreasing activity (behaviour). We found a positive relationship between morphological effect size and maternal condition, but no relationship between behavioural effect size and maternal condition. These novel findings suggest that limitations imposed by maternal condition can constrain phenotypic variation, ultimately influencing the capacity of populations to respond to environmental change.

Embryonic yolk removal affects a suite of larval salamander life history traits

Egg size is a key life history trait affecting fitness, and it varies abundantly. The value of egg size to a mother and her offspring is often determined by a trade-off between investing more yolk in a few large eggs or less yolk into many more, smaller eggs. Smaller eggs are generally expected to be phenotypically inferior or females could increase their fitness by making more smaller eggs. However, many females produce a mix of egg sizes and natural yolk variation induces normal developmental responses which may persist into subsequent stages of a complex life history. Since sources of phenotypic variation are easily confounded, I surgically removed yolk from embryonic spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) using a sham surgery as a control and a split-clutch design to isolate the effects of yolk reserve variation from genetic sources of variation. Yolk removal induced early hatching, reduced developmental stage and hatchling body size. Small hatchlings stayed relatively small through the early larval period, but 17 weeks later the correlation with early larval body size was lost. When the experiment ended, larger individuals were further along in metamorphic development but mortality was independent of early larval body size. Variation in spotted salamander yolk reserves affects a suite of hatchling life history traits that persists into the larval period. Outside the laboratory, egg size effects may cascade throughout complex amphibian life histories. Applied experimentally and comparatively, this simple yolk removal technique may help identify how traits increase or decrease their response to maternal yolk investment.

Developmental diversity of amphibians

The current model amphibian, Xenopus laevis, develops rapidly in water to a tadpole which metamorphoses into a frog. Many amphibians deviate from the X. laevis developmental pattern. Among other adaptations, their embryos develop in foam nests on land or in pouches on their mother's back or on a leaf guarded by a parent. The diversity of developmental patterns includes multinucleated oogenesis, lack of RNA localization, huge non-pigmented eggs, and asynchronous, irregular early cleavages. Variations in patterns of gastrulation highlight the modularity of this critical developmental period. Many species have eliminated the larva or tadpole and directly develop to the adult. The wealth of developmental diversity among amphibians coupled with the wealth of mechanistic information from X. laevis permit comparisons that provide deeper insights into developmental processes.

Larval and nurse worker control of developmental plasticity and the evolution of honey bee queen-worker dimorphism

Social evolution in honey bees has produced strong queen-worker dimorphism for plastic traits that depend on larval nutrition. The honey bee developmental programme includes both larval components that determine plastic growth responses to larval nutrition and nurse components that regulate larval nutrition. We studied how these two components contribute to variation in worker and queen body size and ovary size for two pairs of honey bee lineages that show similar differences in worker body-ovary size allometry but have diverged over different evolutionary timescales. Our results indicate that the lineages have diverged for both nurse and larval developmental components, that rapid changes in worker body-ovary size allometry may disrupt queen development and that queen-worker dimorphism arises mainly from discrete nurse-provided nutritional environments, not from a developmental switch that converts variable nutritional environments into discrete phenotypes. Both larval and nurse components have likely contributed to the evolution of queen-worker dimorphism.

Maternal investment influences expression of resource polymorphism in amphibians: implications for the evolution of novel resource-use phenotypes

Maternal effects--where an individual's phenotype is influenced by the phenotype or environment of its mother--are taxonomically and ecologically widespread. Yet, their role in the origin of novel, complex traits remains unclear. Here we investigate the role of maternal effects in influencing the induction of a novel resource-use phenotype. Spadefoot toad tadpoles, Spea multiplicata, often deviate from their normal development and produce a morphologically distinctive carnivore-morph phenotype, which specializes on anostracan fairy shrimp. We evaluated whether maternal investment influences expression of this novel phenotype. We found that larger females invested in larger eggs, which, in turn, produced larger tadpoles. Such larger tadpoles are better able to capture the shrimp that induce carnivores. By influencing the expression of novel resource-use phenotypes, maternal effects may play a largely underappreciated role in the origins of novelty.