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Wilson KM, Burley NT. Early-Life Silver Spoon Improves Survival and Breeding Performance of Adult Zebra Finches. Am Nat 2024; 204:73-95. [PMID: 38857346 DOI: 10.1086/730265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2024]
Abstract
AbstractDevelopmental plasticity allows organisms to increase the fit between their phenotype and their early-life environment. The extent to which such plasticity also enhances adult fitness is not well understood, however, particularly when early-life and adult environments differ substantially. Using a cross-factorial design that manipulated diet at two life stages, we examined predictions of major hypotheses-silver spoon, environmental matching, and thrifty phenotype-concerning the joint impacts of early-life and adult diets on adult morphology/display traits, survival, and reproductive allocation. Overall, results aligned with the silver spoon hypothesis, which makes several predictions based on the premise that development in poor-quality environments constrains adult performance. Males reared and bred on a low-protein diet had lower adult survivorship than other male treatment groups; females' survivorship was higher than males' and not impacted by early diet. Measures of allocation to reproduction primarily reflected breeding diet, but where natal diet impacted reproduction, results supported the silver spoon. Both sexes showed reduced expression of display traits when reared on a low-protein diet. Results accord with other studies in supporting the relevance of the silver spoon hypothesis to birds and point to significant ramifications of sex differences in early-life viability selection on the applicability/strength of silver spoon effects.
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Lopez-Hervas K, Porwal N, Delacoux M, Vezyrakis A, Guenther A. Is the speed of adjusting to environmental change condition dependent? An experiment with house mice ( Mus musculus). Curr Zool 2024; 70:350-360. [PMID: 39035765 PMCID: PMC11256001 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoae005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2023] [Accepted: 02/15/2024] [Indexed: 07/23/2024] Open
Abstract
Environmental conditions change constantly either by anthropogenic perturbation or naturally across space and time. Often, a change in behavior is the first response to changing conditions. Behavioral flexibility can potentially improve an organism's chances to survive and reproduce. Currently, we lack an understanding on the time-scale such behavioral adjustments need, how they actually affect reproduction and survival and whether behavioral adjustments are sufficient in keeping up with changing conditions. We used house mice (Mus musculus) to test whether personality and life-history traits can adjust to an experimentally induced food-switch flexibly in adulthood or by intergenerational plasticity, that is, adjustments only becoming visible in the offspring generation. Mice lived in 6 experimental populations of semi-natural environments either on high or standard quality food for 4 generations. We showed previously that high-quality food induced better conditions and a less risk-prone personality. Here, we tested whether the speed and/ or magnitude of adjustment shows condition-dependency and whether adjustments incur fitness effects. Life-history but not personality traits reacted flexibly to a food-switch, primarily by a direct reduction of reproduction and slowed-down growth. Offspring whose parents received a food-switch developed a more active stress-coping personality and gained weight at a slower rate compared with their respective controls. Furthermore, the modulation of most traits was condition-dependent, with animals previously fed with high-quality food showing stronger responses. Our study highlights that life-history and personality traits adjust at different speed toward environmental change, thus, highlighting the importance of the environment and the mode of response for evolutionary models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karem Lopez-Hervas
- RG Behavioural Ecology of Individual Differences, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24306 Plön, Germany
| | - Neelam Porwal
- RG Behavioural Ecology of Individual Differences, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24306 Plön, Germany
- Department of Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Wieniawskiego 1, 61-712 Poznań, Poland
| | - Mathilde Delacoux
- RG Behavioural Ecology of Individual Differences, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24306 Plön, Germany
- Department for Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, 78464 Constance, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Constance, Germany
| | - Alexandros Vezyrakis
- RG Behavioural Ecology of Individual Differences, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24306 Plön, Germany
- Animal Ecology, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, 14469 Potsdam, Germany
| | - Anja Guenther
- RG Behavioural Ecology of Individual Differences, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24306 Plön, Germany
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3
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Prabh N, Linnenbrink M, Jovicic M, Guenther A. Fast adjustment of pace-of-life and risk-taking to changes in food quality by altered gene expression in house mice. Ecol Lett 2023; 26:99-110. [PMID: 36366786 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14137] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2022] [Revised: 10/06/2022] [Accepted: 10/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
Abstract
The pace-of-life syndrome hypothesis provides a framework for the adaptive integration of behaviour, physiology and life history between and within species. It suggests that behaviours involving a risk of death or injury should co-vary with a higher allocation to fast reproduction. Empirical support for this hypothesis is mixed, presumably because important influencing factors such as environmental variation, are usually neglected. By experimentally manipulating food quality of wild mice living under semi-natural conditions for three generations, we show that individuals adjust their life history strategies and risk-taking behaviours as well as trait covariation (Nindividuals = 1442). These phenotypic differences are correlated to differences in transcriptomic gene expression of primary metabolic processes in the liver while no changes in gene frequencies occurred. Our discussion emphasises the need to integrate the role of environmental conditions and phenotypic plasticity in shaping relationships among behaviour, physiology and life history in response to changing environmental conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neel Prabh
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany
| | | | - Milan Jovicic
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany
| | - Anja Guenther
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany
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4
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Gerritsma YH, Driessen MMG, Tangili M, de Boer SF, Verhulst S. Experimentally manipulated food availability affects offspring quality but not quantity in zebra finch meso-populations. Oecologia 2022; 199:769-783. [PMID: 35614323 PMCID: PMC9465982 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-022-05183-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2021] [Accepted: 05/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Food availability modulates survival, reproduction and thereby population size. In addition to direct effects, food availability has indirect effects through density of conspecifics and predators. We tested the prediction that food availability in isolation affects reproductive success by experimentally manipulating food availability continuously for 3 years in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) housed in outdoor aviaries. To this end, we applied a technique that mimics natural variation in food availability: increasing the effort required per food reward without affecting diet. Lower food availability resulted in a slight delay of start of laying and fewer clutches per season, but did not affect clutch size or number of offspring reared per annum. However, increasing foraging costs substantially reduced offspring growth. Thus, food availability in isolation did not impact the quantity of offspring reared, at the expense of offspring quality. Growth declined strongly with brood size, and we interpret the lack of response with respect to offspring number as an adaptation to environments with low predictability, at the time of egg laying, of food availability during the period of peak food demand, typically weeks later. Manipulated natal brood size of the parents did not affect reproductive success. Individuals that were more successful reproducers were more likely to survive to the next breeding season, as frequently found in natural populations. We conclude that the causal mechanisms underlying associations between food availability and reproductive success in natural conditions may be more complex than usually assumed. Experiments in semi-natural meso-populations can contribute to further unravelling these mechanisms.
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Lu C, Lefeuvre M, Rutkowska J. Variability in ambient temperature promotes juvenile participation and shorter latency in a learning test in zebra finches. Anim Behav 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.01.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
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6
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Wada H, Coutts V. Detrimental or beneficial? Untangling the literature on developmental stress studies in birds. J Exp Biol 2021; 224:272388. [PMID: 34608943 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.227363] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Developing animals display a tremendous ability to change the course of their developmental path in response to the environment they experience, a concept referred to as developmental plasticity. This change in behavior, physiology or cellular processes is primarily thought to allow animals to better accommodate themselves to the surrounding environment. However, existing data on developmental stress and whether it brings about beneficial or detrimental outcomes show conflicting results. There are several well-referred hypotheses related to developmental stress in the current literature, such as the environmental matching, silver spoon and thrifty phenotype hypotheses. These hypotheses speculate that the early-life environment defines the capacity of the physiological functions and behavioral tendencies and that this change is permanent and impacts the fitness of the individual. These hypotheses also postulate there is a trade-off among organ systems and physiological functions when resources are insufficient. Published data on avian taxa show that some effects of developmental nutritional and thermal stressors are long lasting, such as the effects on body mass and birdsong. Although hypotheses on developmental stress are based on fitness components, data on reproduction and survival are scarce, making it difficult to determine which hypothesis these data support. Furthermore, most physiological and performance measures are collected only once; thus, the physiological mechanisms remain undertested. Here, we offer potential avenues of research to identify reasons behind the contrasting results in developmental stress research and possible ways to determine whether developmental programming due to stressors is beneficial or detrimental, including quantifying reproduction and survival in multiple environments, measuring temporal changes in physiological variables and testing for stress resistance later in life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Haruka Wada
- Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
| | - Victoria Coutts
- Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
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7
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Poliserpi MB, Cristos DS, Brodeur JC. Imidacloprid seed coating poses a risk of acute toxicity to small farmland birds: A weight-of-evidence analysis using data from the grayish baywing Agelaioides badius. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2021; 763:142957. [PMID: 33498114 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142957] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2020] [Revised: 10/07/2020] [Accepted: 10/08/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The aim of this study was to estimate the risk posed by imidacloprid (IMI) seed coating to passerine birds of the Pampa Region of Argentina using data specifically generated with the grayish baywing (Agelaioides badius). Median lethal dose (LD50) of the IMI-based formulation tested was 57.11 mg IMI/kg body weight (bw), with intoxication signs starting from 20.6 mg IMI/kg bw. The feed intake rate (FIR) was estimated experimentally as 4.895 g/day per bird, representing 12.43% of bw. It was calculated that the ingestion of 7-10% of the FIR as treated seeds would be enough to achieve the LD50 for sorghum, corn, sunflower, and alfalfa, whereas consumption of 31 and 54% of FIR was necessary for oat and wheat, respectively. Based on spill data values available in the literature, it was calculated that, for most crops, a baywing would have to forage an area of field corresponding to less than 60 m2 to obtain the number of seeds required to reach the LD50. It was also shown that this number of seeds is coherent with the amount of seeds ingested in a bout. In a pilot study, all grayish baywings fed with millet seeds treated with 3 g IMI/kg died within three to five days of exposure. In Tier I risk assessment, the trigger value was achieved for all crops except soybean and a weight-of-evidence risk assessment was performed. All lines of evidence examined are consistent with the view that grayish baywings, and probably other small farmland birds, are exposed to a risk of acute toxicity and mortality under both worst-case and mixed-ration exposure scenarios. The possible impacts on bird species calls for an urgent reconsideration of IMI seed coating practices currently approved in the Pampa Region of Argentina and the various parts of the world where this practice is still in use.
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Affiliation(s)
- María Belén Poliserpi
- Instituto de Recursos Biológicos, Centro de Investigaciones de Recursos Naturales (CIRN), Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
| | - Diego Sebastián Cristos
- Instituto de Tecnología de Alimentos, Centro de Investigación de Agroindustria (CIA), Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Julie Céline Brodeur
- Instituto de Recursos Biológicos, Centro de Investigaciones de Recursos Naturales (CIRN), Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina
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8
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The Ecology of the Zebra Finch Makes It a Great Laboratory Model but an Outlier amongst Passerine Birds. BIRDS 2021. [DOI: 10.3390/birds2010004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Zebra Finches have become the most widely researched bird species outside of those used in agricultural production. Their adoption as the avian model of choice is largely down to a number of characteristics that make them easy to obtain and use in captivity. The main point of our paper is that the very characteristics that make the Zebra Finch a highly amenable laboratory model species mean that it is by definition different from many other passerine birds, and therefore not a good general model for many research areas. The Zebra Finch is likely to be particularly resilient to the effects of stress early in life, and is likely to show great flexibility in dealing with a wide variety of conditions later in life. Whilst it is tempting for researchers to turn to species such as the Zebra Finch, that can be the focus of manipulative work in the laboratory, we caution that the findings of such studies may confound our understanding of general avian biology. The Zebra Finch will remain an excellent species for laboratory work, and our paper should help to direct and interpret future work in the laboratory and the field.
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Moran NP, Sánchez‐Tójar A, Schielzeth H, Reinhold K. Poor nutritional condition promotes high‐risk behaviours: a systematic review and meta‐analysis. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2020; 96:269-288. [DOI: 10.1111/brv.12655] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2020] [Revised: 09/09/2020] [Accepted: 09/10/2020] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Nicholas P. Moran
- Evolutionary Biology Bielefeld University Morgenbreede 45 Bielefeld 33615 Germany
- Centre for Ocean Life DTU‐Aqua Technical University of Denmark Building 201, Kemitorvet Kgs. Lyngby 2800 Denmark
| | | | - Holger Schielzeth
- Institute of Ecology and Evolution Friedrich Schiller University Jena Dornburger Straße 159 Jena 07743 Germany
| | - Klaus Reinhold
- Evolutionary Biology Bielefeld University Morgenbreede 45 Bielefeld 33615 Germany
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10
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Pei Y, Forstmeier W, Kempenaers B. Offspring performance is well buffered against stress experienced by ancestors. Evolution 2020; 74:1525-1539. [PMID: 32463119 DOI: 10.1111/evo.14026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2020] [Revised: 05/14/2020] [Accepted: 05/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Evolution should render individuals resistant to stress and particularly to stress experienced by ancestors. However, many studies report negative effects of stress experienced by one generation on the performance of subsequent generations. To assess the strength of such transgenerational effects we propose a strategy aimed at overcoming the problem of type I errors when testing multiple proxies of stress in multiple ancestors against multiple offspring performance traits, and we apply it to a large observational dataset on captive zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). We combine clear one-tailed hypotheses with steps of validation, meta-analytic summary of mean effect sizes, and independent confirmatory testing. We find that drastic differences in early growth conditions (nestling body mass 8 days after hatching varied sevenfold between 1.7 and 12.4 g) had only moderate direct effects on adult morphology (95% confidence interval [CI]: r = 0.19-0.27) and small direct effects on adult fitness traits (r = 0.02-0.12). In contrast, we found no indirect effects of parental or grandparental condition (r = -0.017 to 0.002; meta-analytic summary of 138 effect sizes), and mixed evidence for small benefits of matching environments between parents and offspring, as the latter was not robust to confirmatory testing in independent datasets. This study shows that evolution has led to a remarkable robustness of zebra finches against undernourishment. Our study suggests that transgenerational effects are absent in this species, because CIs exclude all biologically relevant effect sizes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yifan Pei
- Department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, 82319, Germany
| | - Wolfgang Forstmeier
- Department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, 82319, Germany
| | - Bart Kempenaers
- Department of Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, 82319, Germany
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11
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Mishra I, Batra T, Prabhat A, Agarwal N, Bhardwaj SK, Kumar V. Developmental effects of daily food availability times on song behaviour and neuronal plasticity of song-control system in male zebra finches. Behav Brain Res 2020; 382:112497. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112497] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2019] [Revised: 01/19/2020] [Accepted: 01/19/2020] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
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12
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Paul SC, Putra R, Müller C. Early life starvation has stronger intra-generational than transgenerational effects on key life-history traits and consumption measures in a sawfly. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0226519. [PMID: 31856200 PMCID: PMC6922382 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226519] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2019] [Accepted: 11/26/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Resource availability during development shapes not only adult phenotype but also the phenotype of subsequent offspring. When resources are absent and periods of starvation occur in early life, such developmental stress often influences key life-history traits in a way that benefits individuals and their offspring when facing further bouts of starvation. Here we investigated the impacts of different starvation regimes during larval development on life-history traits and measures of consumption in the turnip sawfly, Athalia rosae (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae). We then assessed whether offspring of starved and non-starved parents differed in their own life-history if reared in conditions that either matched that of their parents or were a mismatch. Early life starvation effects were more pronounced within than across generations in A. rosae, with negative impacts on adult body mass and increases in developmental time, but no effects on adult longevity in either generation. We found some evidence of higher growth rates in larvae having experienced starvation, although this did not ameliorate the overall negative effect of larval starvation on adult size. However, further work is necessary to disentangle the effects of larval size and instar from those of starvation treatment. Finally, we found weak evidence for transgenerational effects on larval growth, with intra-generational larval starvation experience being more decisive for life-history traits. Our study demonstrates that intra-generational effects of starvation are stronger than transgenerational effects on life-history traits and consumption measures in A. rosae.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Rocky Putra
- Chemical Ecology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
- Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
| | - Caroline Müller
- Chemical Ecology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
- * E-mail:
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13
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Wilson KM, Tatarenkov A, Burley NT. Early life and transgenerational stressors impact secondary sexual traits and fitness. Behav Ecol 2019. [DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arz020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Kerianne M Wilson
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - Andrey Tatarenkov
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - Nancy Tyler Burley
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
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14
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Mishra I, Kumar V. The quantity-quality trade-off: differential effects of daily food times on reproductive performance and offspring quality in diurnal zebra finches. J Exp Biol 2019; 222:jeb.196667. [DOI: 10.1242/jeb.196667] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2018] [Accepted: 02/27/2019] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
Abstract
Abundant food supply is crucial to reproductive performance, as shown by restricted food availability experiments, in small-sized vertebrates including birds. However, whether daily times of feeding would affect the reproduction is largely unknown. Present study investigated the effects of daily food availability times on reproductive performance and quality of eggs and offspring survivors in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). To randomly paired birds kept under 12 h light per day for about 52 weeks, food availability period was restricted to 4 h in morning (FA-M) or evening (FA-E), with controls on food ad libitum; thus, daily food deprivation period began after 4 h of food in FA-M and was continuous with nighttime starvation in FA-E. Both food restrictions adversely affected reproductive health as shown by reduced sex steroids and mesotocin levels, but not general metabolism as indicated by no-difference in thyroxin and triiodothyronine levels. Food for 4 h negatively affected the reproductive performance, although with differences between FA-M and FA-E pairs. Particularly, there was delayed onset of reproduction and compromised reproductive success in FA-E, but not in FA-M pairs; conversely, the offspring health was severely compromised in FA-M, but not in FA-E pairs. Furthermore, FA-M females were in better health, implicating sex-biasness in parental food provisioning. Overall, we demonstrate trade-off of ‘quantity’ (offspring produced and/ or survived) for ‘quality’ (how good offspring were in health) in response to daily food availability times in zebra finches that much like humans are diurnal and retain the ability to reproduce throughout the year.
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Affiliation(s)
- I. Mishra
- Department of Zoology, University of Delhi, Delhi – 110 007, India
| | - V. Kumar
- Department of Zoology, University of Delhi, Delhi – 110 007, India
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15
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Crocker KC, Hunter MD. Environmental causes and transgenerational consequences of ecdysteroid hormone provisioning in Acheta domesticus. JOURNAL OF INSECT PHYSIOLOGY 2018; 109:69-78. [PMID: 29890170 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2018.06.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2017] [Revised: 06/06/2018] [Accepted: 06/07/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
An animal's phenotype may be shaped by its genes, but also reflects its own environment and often that of its parents. Nongenetic parental effects are often mediated by steroid hormones, and operate between parents and offspring through mechanisms that are well described in vertebrate and model systems. However, less is understood about the strength and frequency of hormone mediated nongenetic parental effects across more than one generation of descendants, and in nonmodel systems. Here we show that the concentration of active ecdysteroid hormones provided by a female house cricket (Acheta domesticus) affects the growth rate of her offspring. We also reveal that variation in the active ecdysteroid hormones provided by a female house cricket to her eggs derives primarily from the quality of nutrition available to her maternal grandmother, regardless of genetic background. This finding is in stark contrast to most previous work that documents a decline in the strength of environmentally based parental effects with each passing generation. Strong grandparental effects may be adaptive under predictable, cyclical changes in the environment. Our results also suggest that hormone-mediated grand-maternal effects represent an important potential mechanism by which organisms can respond to environmental variability, and that further study of hormone-mediated carryover effects in this context could be profitable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katherine C Crocker
- 1105 North University Ave, Kraus Natural Sciences Building, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1085, USA.
| | - Mark D Hunter
- 1105 North University Ave, Kraus Natural Sciences Building, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1085, USA
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16
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Krause ET, Krüger O, Hoffman JI. The influence of inherited plumage colour morph on morphometric traits and breeding investment in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). PLoS One 2017; 12:e0188582. [PMID: 29190647 PMCID: PMC5708660 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2017] [Accepted: 11/09/2017] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Melanin-based plumage polymorphism occurs in many wild bird populations and has been linked to fitness variation in several species. These fitness differences often arise as a consequence of variation in traits such as behaviour, immune responsiveness, body size and reproductive investment. However, few studies have controlled for genetic differences between colour morphs that could potentially generate artefactual associations between plumage colouration and trait variation. Here, we used zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) as a model system in order to evaluate whether life-history traits such as adult body condition and reproductive investment could be influenced by plumage morph. To maximise any potential differences, we selected wild-type and white plumage morphs, which differ maximally in their extent of melanisation, while using a controlled three-generation breeding design to homogenise the genetic background. We found that F2 adults with white plumage colouration were on average lighter and had poorer body condition than wild-type F2 birds. However, they appeared to compensate for this by reproducing earlier and producing heavier eggs relative to their own body mass. Our study thus reveals differences in morphological and life history traits that could be relevant to fitness variation, although further studies will be required to evaluate fitness effects under natural conditions as well as to characterise any potential fitness costs of compensatory strategies in white zebra finches.
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Affiliation(s)
- E. Tobias Krause
- Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
- Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Celle, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Oliver Krüger
- Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Joseph I. Hoffman
- Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
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17
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Tamilselvan P, Sloman K. Developmental social experience of parents affects behaviour of offspring in zebrafish. Anim Behav 2017. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.09.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
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18
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Krause ET, Krüger O, Pogány Á. Zebra finch nestlings, rather than parents, suffer from raising broods under low nutritional conditions. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2017. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-017-2382-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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19
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Honarmand M, Krause ET, Naguib M. Implications of nutritional stress as nestling or fledgling on subsequent attractiveness and fecundity in zebra finches ( Taeniopygia guttata). PeerJ 2017; 5:e3628. [PMID: 28852585 PMCID: PMC5572542 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3628] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2017] [Accepted: 07/10/2017] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
The conditions an organism experiences during early development can have profound and long lasting effects on its subsequent behavior, attractiveness, and life history decisions. Most previous studies have exposed individuals to different conditions throughout development until nutritional independence. Yet under natural conditions, individuals may experience limitations for much shorter periods due to transient environmental fluctuations. Here, we used zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) in captivity to determine if conditions experienced during distinctly different early developmental phases contribute differently to male and female attractiveness and subsequent reproduction. We conducted a breeding experiment in which offspring were exposed to food regimes with (a) low quality food provided only during the nestling period, (b) low quality food provided only during the fledgling period, or (c) high quality food throughout early development. We show that despite short-term effects on biometry and physiology, there were no effects on either male or female attractiveness, as tested in two-way mate choice free-flight aviary experiments. In a subsequent breeding experiment, the offspring from the initial experiment were allowed to breed themselves. The next generation offspring from mothers raised under lower quality nutrition as either nestling or fledging were lighter at hatching compared to offspring from mothers raised under higher quality nutrition whereas paternal early nutrition had no such effects. The lack of early developmental limitations on attractiveness suggests that attractiveness traits were not affected or that birds compensated for any such effects. Furthermore, maternal trans-generational effects of dietary restrictions emphasize the importance of role of limited periods of early developmental stress in the expression of environmentally determined fitness components.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariam Honarmand
- Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - E Tobias Krause
- Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.,Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Celle, Germany
| | - Marc Naguib
- Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.,Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Krause ET, Krüger O, Schielzeth H. Long-term effects of early nutrition and environmental matching on developmental and personality traits in zebra finches. Anim Behav 2017. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.04.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
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Transgenerational transmission of a stress-coping phenotype programmed by early-life stress in the Japanese quail. Sci Rep 2017; 7:46125. [PMID: 28387355 PMCID: PMC5384203 DOI: 10.1038/srep46125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2016] [Accepted: 03/13/2017] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
An interesting aspect of developmental programming is the existence of transgenerational effects that influence offspring characteristics and performance later in life. These transgenerational effects have been hypothesized to allow individuals to cope better with predictable environmental fluctuations and thus facilitate adaptation to changing environments. Here, we test for the first time how early-life stress drives developmental programming and transgenerational effects of maternal exposure to early-life stress on several phenotypic traits in their offspring in a functionally relevant context using a fully factorial design. We manipulated pre- and/or post-natal stress in both Japanese quail mothers and offspring and examined the consequences for several stress-related traits in the offspring generation. We show that pre-natal stress experienced by the mother did not simply affect offspring phenotype but resulted in the inheritance of the same stress-coping traits in the offspring across all phenotypic levels that we investigated, shaping neuroendocrine, physiological and behavioural traits. This may serve mothers to better prepare their offspring to cope with later environments where the same stressors are experienced.
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Zidar J, Sorato E, Malmqvist AM, Jansson E, Rosher C, Jensen P, Favati A, Løvlie H. Early experience affects adult personality in the red junglefowl: A role for cognitive stimulation? Behav Processes 2017; 134:78-86. [DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2016.06.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2016] [Revised: 05/15/2016] [Accepted: 06/03/2016] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
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Engqvist L, Reinhold K. Adaptive trans‐generational phenotypic plasticity and the lack of an experimental control in reciprocal match/mismatch experiments. Methods Ecol Evol 2016. [DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.12618] [Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Leif Engqvist
- Behavioural Ecology Institute of Ecology and Evolution University of Bern Wohlenstrasse 50A CH‐3032 Hinterkappelen Switzerland
- Evolutionary Biology Bielefeld University Morgenbreede 45, D‐33615 Bielefeld Germany
| | - Klaus Reinhold
- Evolutionary Biology Bielefeld University Morgenbreede 45, D‐33615 Bielefeld Germany
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Krause ET, Naguib M. Zebra finch males compensate in plumage ornaments at sexual maturation for a bad start in life. Front Zool 2016; 12 Suppl 1:S11. [PMID: 26816511 PMCID: PMC4722338 DOI: 10.1186/1742-9994-12-s1-s11] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Background An individual's fitness in part depends on the characteristics of the mate so that sexually attractive ornaments, as signals of quality, are used in mate choice. Often such ornaments develop already early in life and thus are affected by nutritional conditions experienced then. Individuals thus should benefit by compensating as soon as possible for poor initial development of ornaments, to be attractive already at sexual maturity. Here, we tested whether early nutritional stress affects the cheek patch size of male Zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), which are important in mate choice, and whether a small cheek patch size early on is compensated at sexual maturation. Furthermore we tested whether exploration behaviour is affected by such a compensation, as shown for other compensatory growth trajectories. Results Zebra finch males which were raised under poorer nutritional conditions initially expressed smaller cheek patches at day 50 post-hatching but then compensated in cheek patch size already at 65 days, i.e. when becoming sexually mature. Furthermore, compensatory growth in cheek patch during adolescence was negatively correlated with activity and exploration behaviour, measured in a novel environment. Conclusion This compensation in cheek patch size benefits male attractiveness but also was related to less exploration behaviour, an established proxy for avian personality traits. We discuss the possibility that compensatory priorities exist so that not all deficits from a bad start are caught-up at the same time. Resource allocation to compensate for poorly expressed traits is likely to have evolved to optimise traits by the time they are most beneficial.
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Affiliation(s)
- E Tobias Krause
- Department of Animal Behaviour, University Bielefeld, Konsequenz 45, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany; Institute of Animal Welfare and Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler Institute, Doernbergstr. 25-27, 29223 Celle, Germany
| | - Marc Naguib
- Department of Animal Behaviour, University Bielefeld, Konsequenz 45, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany; Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University, De Elst 1, 6708 WD Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Oers KV, Kohn GM, Hinde CA, Naguib M. Parental food provisioning is related to nestling stress response in wild great tit nestlings: implications for the development of personality. Front Zool 2015; 12:S10. [PMID: 26913051 PMCID: PMC4755007 DOI: 10.1186/1742-9994-12-s1-s10] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Variation in early nutrition is known to play an important role in shaping the behavioural development of individuals. Parental prey selection may have long-lasting behavioural influences. In birds foraging on arthropods, for instance, the specific prey types, e.g. spiders and caterpillars, matter as they have different levels of taurine which may have an effect on personality development. Here we investigated how naturally occurring variation in the amounts of spiders and caterpillars, provisioned to nestlings at day 4 and 8 after hatching, is related to the response to handling stress in a wild passerine, the great tit (Parus major). Broods were cross-fostered in a split-brood design allowing us to separate maternal and genetic effects from early rearing effects. Adult provisioning behaviour was monitored on day four and day eight after hatching using video recordings. Individual nestlings were subjected to a handling stress test at an age of 14 days, which is a validated proxy for exploratory behaviour as an adult. Results Variation in handling stress was mainly determined by the rearing environment. We show that, contrary to our predictions, not the amount of spider biomass, but the amount of caterpillar biomass delivered per nestling significantly affected individual performance in the stress test. Chicks provisioned with lower amounts of caterpillars exhibited a stronger stress response, reflecting faster exploratory behaviour later on in life, than individuals who received larger amounts of caterpillars. Conclusions These results suggest that natural variation in parental behaviour in wild birds modulates the developmental trajectories of their offspring's personality via food provisioning. Since parental provisioning behaviour might also reflect the local environmental conditions, provisioning behaviour may influence how nestlings respond to these local environmental conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kees van Oers
- Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Gregory M Kohn
- Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands; current address: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington IN, USA
| | - Camilla A Hinde
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Marc Naguib
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Honarmand M, Thompson CK, Schatton A, Kipper S, Scharff C. Early developmental stress negatively affects neuronal recruitment to avian song system nucleus HVC. Dev Neurobiol 2015; 76:107-18. [DOI: 10.1002/dneu.22302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2014] [Revised: 05/02/2015] [Accepted: 05/07/2015] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Mariam Honarmand
- Department of Animal Behavior; Freie Universität; Berlin Germany
| | - Christopher K. Thompson
- Department of Animal Behavior; Freie Universität; Berlin Germany
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience; the Scripps Research Institute; La Jolla California
| | - Adriana Schatton
- Department of Animal Behavior; Freie Universität; Berlin Germany
| | - Silke Kipper
- Department of Animal Behavior; Freie Universität; Berlin Germany
- Department of Zoology; Technische Universität München; Munich Germany
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Kriengwatana B, MacDougall-Shackleton SA. No Trade-Offs between Lipid Stores and Structural Growth in Juvenile Zebra Finches Undergoing Nutritional Stress during Development. Physiol Biochem Zool 2015; 88:208-15. [PMID: 25730275 DOI: 10.1086/678988] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Nutritional conditions during development can affect both structural growth and body fat deposition. Body size and body fat each have significant consequences for fitness, yet few studies have investigated how young birds balance resource allocation between structural growth and fat reserves. We raised zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) in consistently high- or low-food conditions until posthatch day 35 (PHD 35). From this age until PHD 62, half of the birds in each condition were switched to the other treatment, while the rest were maintained on the same conditions. Body mass, lean mass, body fat, and tarsus length were measured before (PHD 25) and after (PHD 55) nutritional independence. Precise measures of body composition were obtained noninvasively at both ages using quantitative magnetic resonance analysis. At PHD 25, birds in the high treatment had more body mass and lean mass than birds in the low treatment, but nutritional treatments did not affect body fat at this age. Unexpectedly, the strategic response of birds that experienced deteriorating food availability was to maintain body mass by increasing body fat and decreasing lean mass. Birds that experienced an improvement in food availability significantly increased body mass by increasing lean mass and not body fat. Birds maintained on a low diet throughout did not significantly increase body mass, lean mass, or body fat. Tarsus length was not affected by nutritional manipulations. These findings indicate that nutritional stress did not affect the relationship between skeletal growth and body fat deposition because lean mass, body fat, and tarsus length can be independently regulated at different developmental periods depending on nutritional conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Buddhamas Kriengwatana
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6G 1G9, Canada; and Advanced Facility for Avian Research, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6G 1G9, Canada; 2Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada
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The expression of pre- and postcopulatory sexually selected traits reflects levels of dietary stress in guppies. PLoS One 2014; 9:e105856. [PMID: 25170940 PMCID: PMC4149491 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105856] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2014] [Accepted: 07/22/2014] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Environmental and ecological conditions can shape the evolution of life history traits in many animals. Among such factors, food or nutrition availability can play an important evolutionary role in moderating an animal's life history traits, particularly sexually selected traits. Here, we test whether diet quantity and/or composition in the form of omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (here termed ‘n3LC’) influence the expression of pre- and postcopulatory traits in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata), a livebearing poeciliid fish. We assigned males haphazardly to one of two experimental diets supplemented with n3LC, and each of these diet treatments was further divided into two diet ‘quantity’ treatments. Our experimental design therefore explored the main and interacting effects of two factors (n3LC content and diet quantity) on the expression of precopulatory (sexual behaviour and sexual ornamentation, including the size, number and spectral properties of colour spots) and postcopulatory (the velocity, viability, number and length of sperm) sexually selected traits. Our study revealed that diet quantity had significant effects on most of the pre- and postcopulatory traits, while n3LC manipulation had a significant effect on sperm traits and in particular on sperm viability. Our analyses also revealed interacting effects of diet quantity and n3LC levels on courtship displays, and the area of orange and iridescent colour spots in the males’ colour patterns. We also confirmed that our dietary manipulations of n3LC resulted in the differential uptake of n3LC in body and testes tissues in the different n3LC groups. This study reveals the effects of diet quantity and n3LC on behavioural, ornamental and ejaculate traits in P. reticulata and underscores the likely role that diet plays in maintaining the high variability in these condition-dependent sexual traits.
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Brust V, Krüger O, Naguib M, Krause ET. Lifelong consequences of early nutritional conditions on learning performance in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). Behav Processes 2014; 103:320-6. [DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2014.01.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2013] [Revised: 01/03/2014] [Accepted: 01/14/2014] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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