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Matzke M, Rossi A, Tuni C. Pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection increase offspring quality but impose survival costs to female field crickets. J Evol Biol 2023; 36:296-308. [PMID: 36484616 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.14132] [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: 06/15/2022] [Revised: 10/31/2022] [Accepted: 11/09/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Whether sexual selection increases or decreases fitness is under ongoing debate. Sexual selection operates before and after mating. Yet, the effects of each episode of selection on individual reproductive success remain largely unexplored. We ask how disentangled pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection contribute to fitness of field crickets Gryllus bimaculatus. Treatments allowed exclusively for (i) pre-copulatory selection, with males fighting and courting one female, and the resulting pair breeding monogamously, (ii) post-copulatory selection, with females mating consecutively to multiple males and (iii) relaxed selection, with enforced pair monogamy. While standardizing the number of matings, we estimated a number of fitness traits across treatments and show that females experiencing sexual selection were more likely to reproduce, their offspring hatched sooner, developed faster and had higher body mass at adulthood, but females suffered survival costs. Interestingly, we found no differences in fitness of females or their offspring from pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection treatments. Our findings highlight the potential for sexual selection in enhancing indirect female fitness while concurrently imposing direct survival costs. By potentially outweighing these costs, increased offspring quality could lead to beneficial population-level consequences of sexual selection.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Aurora Rossi
- Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Cristina Tuni
- Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany
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2
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Martine P, Aude A. Parental age at conception on mouse lemur's offspring longevity: Sex-specific maternal effects. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0265783. [PMID: 36580457 PMCID: PMC9799291 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265783] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2022] [Accepted: 11/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Parental age at conception often influences offspring's longevity, a phenomenon referred as the "Lansing effect" described in large variety of organisms. But, the majority of the results refer to the survival of juveniles, mainly explained by an inadequate parental care by the elderly parents, mostly the mothers. Studies on the effect of parental age on offspring's longevity in adulthood remain few, except in humans for whom effects of parental age vary according to statistical models or socioeconomic environments. In a small primate in which the longevity reaches up to 13 years, we investigated the effects of parental age at conception on the longevity of offspring (N = 278) issued from parents with known longevity. None of the postnatal parameters (body mass at 30 and 60 days after birth, size and composition of the litter) influenced offspring's longevity. Mothers' age at conception negatively affected offspring's longevity in males but not in females. By contrast, fathers' age at conception did not influence offspring's longevity. Finally, the longevity of female offspring was significantly positively related to the longevity of both parents. Compared with current studies, the surprisingly minor effect of fathers 'age was related to the high seasonal reproduction and the particular telomere biology of mouse lemurs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Perret Martine
- UMR 7179, Adaptive mechanisms and Evolution, MECADEV, Brunoy, France
- * E-mail:
| | - Anzeraey Aude
- UMR 7179, Adaptive mechanisms and Evolution, MECADEV, Brunoy, France
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3
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Sparks AM, Hammers M, Komdeur J, Burke T, Richardson DS, Dugdale HL. Sex-dependent effects of parental age on offspring fitness in a cooperatively breeding bird. Evol Lett 2022; 6:438-449. [PMID: 36579166 PMCID: PMC9783413 DOI: 10.1002/evl3.300] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2021] [Revised: 09/05/2022] [Accepted: 09/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Parental age can have considerable effects on offspring phenotypes and health. However, intergenerational effects may also have longer term effects on offspring fitness. Few studies have investigated parental age effects on offspring fitness in natural populations while also testing for sex- and environment-specific effects. Further, longitudinal parental age effects may be masked by population-level processes such as the selective disappearance of poor-quality individuals. Here, we used multigenerational data collected on individually marked Seychelles warblers (Acrocephalus sechellensis) to investigate the impact of maternal and paternal age on offspring life span and lifetime reproductive success. We found negative effects of maternal age on female offspring life span and lifetime reproductive success, which were driven by within-mother effects. There was no difference in annual reproductive output of females born to older versus younger mothers, suggesting that the differences in offspring lifetime reproductive success were driven by effects on offspring life span. In contrast, there was no association between paternal age and female offspring life span or either maternal or paternal age and male offspring life span. Lifetime reproductive success, but not annual reproductive success, of male offspring increased with maternal age, but this was driven by between-mother effects. No paternal age effects were found on female offspring lifetime reproductive success but there was a positive between-father effect on male offspring lifetime reproductive success. We did not find strong evidence for environment-dependent parental age effects. Our study provides evidence for parental age effects on the lifetime fitness of offspring and shows that such effects can be sex dependent. These results add to the growing literature indicating the importance of intergenerational effects on long-term offspring performance and highlight that these effects can be an important driver of variation in longevity and fitness in the wild.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra M. Sparks
- Faculty of Biological Sciences, School of BiologyUniversity of LeedsLeedsLS2 9JTUnited Kingdom,School of BiosciencesUniversity of SheffieldSheffieldS10 2TNUnited Kingdom
| | - Martijn Hammers
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life SciencesUniversity of GroningenGroningen9712 CPThe Netherlands,Aeres University of Applied SciencesAlmere1325 WBThe Netherlands
| | - Jan Komdeur
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life SciencesUniversity of GroningenGroningen9712 CPThe Netherlands
| | - Terry Burke
- School of BiosciencesUniversity of SheffieldSheffieldS10 2TNUnited Kingdom
| | - David S. Richardson
- School of Biological SciencesUniversity of East AngliaNorwichNR4 7TJUnited Kingdom,Nature SeychellesMahéRepublic of Seychelles
| | - Hannah L. Dugdale
- Faculty of Biological Sciences, School of BiologyUniversity of LeedsLeedsLS2 9JTUnited Kingdom,Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life SciencesUniversity of GroningenGroningen9712 CPThe Netherlands
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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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5
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van Daalen SF, Hernández CM, Caswell H, Neubert MG, Gribble KE. The Contributions of Maternal Age Heterogeneity to Variance in Lifetime Reproductive Output. Am Nat 2022; 199:603-616. [PMID: 35472026 DOI: 10.1086/718716] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/06/2024]
Abstract
AbstractVariance among individuals in fitness components reflects both genuine heterogeneity between individuals and stochasticity in events experienced along the life cycle. Maternal age represents a form of heterogeneity that affects both the mean and the variance of lifetime reproductive output (LRO). Here, we quantify the relative contribution of maternal age heterogeneity to the variance in LRO using individual-level laboratory data on the rotifer Brachionus manjavacas to parameterize a multistate age × maternal age matrix model. In B. manjavacas, advanced maternal age has large negative effects on offspring survival and fertility. We used multistate Markov chains with rewards to quantify the contributions to variance in LRO of heterogeneity and of the stochasticity inherent in the outcomes of probabilistic transitions and reproductive events. Under laboratory conditions, maternal age heterogeneity contributes 26% of the variance in LRO. The contribution changes when mortality and fertility are reduced to mimic more ecologically relevant environments. Over the parameter space where populations are near stationarity, maternal age heterogeneity contributes an average of 3% of the variance. Thus, the contributions of maternal age heterogeneity and individual stochasticity can be expected to depend strongly on environmental conditions; over most of the parameter space, the variance in LRO is dominated by stochasticity.
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6
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Angell CS, Janacek R, Rundle HD. Maternal and paternal age effects on male antler flies: a field experiment. Am Nat 2021; 199:436-442. [DOI: 10.1086/718236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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7
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Travers LM, Carlsson H, Lind MI, Maklakov AA. Beneficial cumulative effects of old parental age on offspring fitness. Proc Biol Sci 2021; 288:20211843. [PMID: 34641727 PMCID: PMC8511764 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.1843] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Old parental age is commonly associated with negative effects on offspring life-history traits. Such parental senescence effects are predicted to have a cumulative detrimental effect over successive generations. However, old parents may benefit from producing higher quality offspring when these compete for seasonal resources. Thus, old parents may choose to increase investment in their offspring, thereby producing fewer but larger and more competitive progeny. We show that Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodites increase parental investment with advancing age, resulting in fitter offspring who reach their reproductive peak earlier. Remarkably, these effects increased over six successive generations of breeding from old parents and were subsequently reversed following a single generation of breeding from a young parent. Our findings support the hypothesis that offspring of old parents receive more resources and convert them into increasingly faster life histories. These results contradict the theory that old parents transfer a cumulative detrimental 'ageing factor' to their offspring.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura M Travers
- School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
| | - Hanne Carlsson
- School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
| | - Martin I Lind
- Department of Ecology and Genetics, Animal Ecology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, 75236 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Alexei A Maklakov
- School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
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8
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Brown AM, Wood EM, Capilla-Lasheras P, Harrison XA, Young AJ. Longitudinal evidence that older parents produce offspring with longer telomeres in a wild social bird. Biol Lett 2021; 17:20210409. [PMID: 34665991 PMCID: PMC8526163 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0409] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2021] [Accepted: 09/29/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
As telomere length (TL) often predicts survival and lifespan, there is considerable interest in the origins of inter-individual variation in TL. Cross-generational effects of parental age on offspring TL are thought to be a key source of variation, but the rarity of longitudinal studies that examine the telomeres of successive offspring born throughout the lives of parents leaves such effects poorly understood. Here, we exploit TL measures of successive offspring produced throughout the long breeding tenures of parents in wild white-browed sparrow weaver (Plocepasser mahali) societies, to isolate the effects of within-parent changes in age on offspring TLs. Our analyses reveal the first evidence to date of a positive within-parent effect of advancing age on offspring TL: as individual parents age, they produce offspring with longer telomeres (a modest effect that persists into offspring adulthood). We consider the potential for pre- and post-natal mechanisms to explain our findings. As telomere attrition predicts offspring survival to adulthood in this species, this positive parental age effect could impact parent and offspring fitness if it arose via differential telomere attrition during offspring development. Our findings support the view that cross-generational effects of parental age can be a source of inter-individual variation in TL.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antony M. Brown
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Emma M. Wood
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Pablo Capilla-Lasheras
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Xavier A. Harrison
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Andrew J. Young
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
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9
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Kroeger SB, Blumstein DT, Martin JGA. How social behaviour and life-history traits change with age and in the year prior to death in female yellow-bellied marmots. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20190745. [PMID: 33678024 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0745] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Studies in natural populations are essential to understand the evolutionary ecology of senescence and terminal allocation. While there are an increasing number of studies investigating late-life variation in different life-history traits of wild populations, little is known about these patterns in social behaviour. We used long-term individual based data on yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) to quantify how affiliative social behaviours and different life-history traits vary with age and in the last year of life, and how patterns compare between the two. We found that some social behaviours and all life-history traits varied with age, whereas terminal last year of life effects were only observed in life-history traits. Our results imply that affiliative social behaviours do not act as a mechanism to adjust allocation among traits when close to death, and highlight the importance of adopting an integrative approach, studying late-life variation and senescence across multiple different traits, to allow the identification of potential trade-offs. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ageing and sociality: why, when and how does sociality change ageing patterns?'
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Affiliation(s)
- Svenja B Kroeger
- Department of Landscape and Biodiversity, The Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Klæbuveien 153, Trondheim 7031, Norway
| | - Daniel T Blumstein
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 621 Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1606, USA.,The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Box 519, Crested Butte, CO 81224, USA
| | - Julien G A Martin
- Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, 30 Marie Curie, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6N5
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10
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Heidinger BJ, Young RC. Cross‐Generational Effects of Parental Age on Offspring Longevity: Are Telomeres an Important Underlying Mechanism? Bioessays 2020; 42:e1900227. [DOI: 10.1002/bies.201900227] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2019] [Revised: 05/20/2020] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Britt J. Heidinger
- Biological Sciences Department North Dakota State University Fargo ND 58108 USA
| | - Rebecca C. Young
- Biological Sciences Department North Dakota State University Fargo ND 58108 USA
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11
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Monaghan P, Maklakov AA, Metcalfe NB. Intergenerational Transfer of Ageing: Parental Age and Offspring Lifespan. Trends Ecol Evol 2020; 35:927-937. [PMID: 32741650 DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2020.07.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2020] [Revised: 07/06/2020] [Accepted: 07/09/2020] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
The extent to which the age of parents at reproduction can affect offspring lifespan and other fitness-related traits is important in our understanding of the selective forces shaping life history evolution. In this article, the widely reported negative effects of parental age on offspring lifespan (the 'Lansing effect') is examined. Outlined herein are the potential routes whereby a Lansing effect can occur, whether effects might accumulate across multiple generations, and how the Lansing effect should be viewed as part of a broader framework, considering how parental age affects offspring fitness. The robustness of the evidence for a Lansing effect produced so far, potential confounding variables, and how the underlying mechanisms might best be unravelled through carefully designed experimental studies are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pat Monaghan
- Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, MVLS, Graham Kerr Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.
| | - Alexei A Maklakov
- School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
| | - Neil B Metcalfe
- Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, MVLS, Graham Kerr Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
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12
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Abstract
Maternal effect senescence, the decline in offspring quality with increasing maternal age, is common in animals despite its negative impact on fitness. To understand how maternal effect senescence might evolve, we built matrix population models to calculate selection gradients on survival and fertility as functions of maternal age. We estimated the model’s parameters with data from an aquatic invertebrate. The strength of selection eventually declines with age and maternal age, implying that maternal effect senescence could be favored by selection and evolve in the same way as senescence. Our framework can be applied to investigate maternal effect senescence in organisms with diverse life histories and unifies the demographic approaches to age-related and maternal effect senescence. Maternal effect senescence—a decline in offspring survival or fertility with maternal age—has been demonstrated in many taxa, including humans. Despite decades of phenotypic studies, questions remain about how maternal effect senescence impacts evolutionary fitness. To understand the influence of maternal effect senescence on population dynamics, fitness, and selection, we developed matrix population models in which individuals are jointly classified by age and maternal age. We fit these models to data from individual-based culture experiments on the aquatic invertebrate, Brachionus manjavacas (Rotifera). By comparing models with and without maternal effects, we found that maternal effect senescence significantly reduces fitness for B. manjavacas and that this decrease arises primarily through reduced fertility, particularly at maternal ages corresponding to peak reproductive output. We also used the models to estimate selection gradients, which measure the strength of selection, in both high growth rate (laboratory) and two simulated low growth rate environments. In all environments, selection gradients on survival and fertility decrease with increasing age. They also decrease with increasing maternal age for late maternal ages, implying that maternal effect senescence can evolve through the same process as in Hamilton’s theory of the evolution of age-related senescence. The models we developed are widely applicable to evaluate the fitness consequences of maternal effect senescence across species with diverse aging and fertility schedule phenotypes.
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