1
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Ordovás‐Montañés M, Preston GM, Drew GC, Rafaluk‐Mohr C, King KC. Reproductive consequences of transient pathogen exposure across host genotypes and generations. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e8720. [PMID: 35356553 PMCID: PMC8938310 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8720] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2021] [Revised: 01/21/2022] [Accepted: 01/24/2022] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
To maximize fitness upon pathogenic infection, host organisms might reallocate energy and resources among life‐history traits, such as reproduction and defense. The fitness costs of infection can result from both immune upregulation and direct pathogen exploitation. The extent to which these costs, separately and together, vary by host genotype and across generations is unknown. We attempted to disentangle these costs by transiently exposing wild isolates and a lab‐domesticated strain of Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes to the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus, using exposure to heat‐killed pathogens to distinguish costs due to immune upregulation and pathogen exploitation. We found that host nematodes exhibit a short‐term delay in offspring production when exposed to live and heat‐killed pathogen, but their lifetime fecundity (total offspring produced) recovered to control levels. We also found genetic variation between host isolates for both cumulative offspring production and magnitude of fitness costs. We further investigated whether there were maternal pathogen exposure costs (or benefits) to offspring and revealed a positive correlation between the magnitude of the pathogen‐induced delay in the parent's first day of reproduction and the cost to offspring population growth. Our findings highlight the capacity for hosts to recover fecundity after transient exposure to a pathogen.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Charlotte Rafaluk‐Mohr
- Department of Zoology University of Oxford Oxford UK
- Institute of Biology Freie Universitat Berlin Berlin Germany
| | - Kayla C. King
- Department of Zoology University of Oxford Oxford UK
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2
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Camilleri T, Piper MDW, Robker RL, Dowling DK. Maternal and paternal sugar consumption interact to modify offspring life history and physiology. Funct Ecol 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.14024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Rebecca L. Robker
- School of Biomedicine Robinson Research Institute The University of Adelaide Adelaide SA Australia
- School of Biomedical Sciences Monash University Clayton VIC Australia
| | - Damian K. Dowling
- School of Biological Sciences Monash University Clayton VIC Australia
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3
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Gershman SN, Miller OG, Hamilton IM. Causes and consequences of variation in development time in a field cricket. J Evol Biol 2021; 35:299-310. [PMID: 34882888 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13971] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2021] [Revised: 11/12/2021] [Accepted: 11/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Variation in development time can affect life-history traits that contribute to fitness. In Gryllus vocalis, a non-diapausing cricket with variable development time, we used a path analysis approach to determine the causative relationships between parental age, offspring development time and offspring life-history traits. Our best-supported path model included both the effects of parental age and offspring development time on offspring morphological traits. This result suggests that offspring traits are influenced by both variation in acquisition of resources and trade-offs between traits. We found that crickets with longer development times became larger adults with better phenoloxidase-based immunity. This is consistent with the hypothesis that crickets must make a trade-off between developing quickly to avoid predation before reproduction and attaining better immunity and a larger adult body size that provides advantages in male-male competition, mate choice and female fecundity. Slower-developing crickets were also more likely to be short-winged (unable to disperse by flight). Parental age has opposing direct and indirect effects on the body size of daughters, but when both the direct and indirect effects of parental age are taken into account, younger parents had smaller sons and daughters. This pattern may be attributable to a parental trade-off between the number and size of eggs produced with younger parents producing more eggs with fewer resources per egg. The relationships between variables in the life-history traits of sons and daughters were similar, suggesting that parental age and development time had similar causative effects on male and female life-history traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Susan N Gershman
- Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University at Marion, Marion, Ohio, USA
| | - Owen G Miller
- Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
| | - Ian M Hamilton
- Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.,Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
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4
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Rutkowska J, Lagisz M, Bonduriansky R, Nakagawa S. Mapping the past, present and future research landscape of paternal effects. BMC Biol 2020; 18:183. [PMID: 33246472 PMCID: PMC7694421 DOI: 10.1186/s12915-020-00892-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2020] [Accepted: 10/08/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Although in all sexually reproducing organisms an individual has a mother and a father, non-genetic inheritance has been predominantly studied in mothers. Paternal effects have been far less frequently studied, until recently. In the last 5 years, research on environmentally induced paternal effects has grown rapidly in the number of publications and diversity of topics. Here, we provide an overview of this field using synthesis of evidence (systematic map) and influence (bibliometric analyses). RESULTS We find that motivations for studies into paternal effects are diverse. For example, from the ecological and evolutionary perspective, paternal effects are of interest as facilitators of response to environmental change and mediators of extended heredity. Medical researchers track how paternal pre-fertilization exposures to factors, such as diet or trauma, influence offspring health. Toxicologists look at the effects of toxins. We compare how these three research guilds design experiments in relation to objects of their studies: fathers, mothers and offspring. We highlight examples of research gaps, which, in turn, lead to future avenues of research. CONCLUSIONS The literature on paternal effects is large and disparate. Our study helps in fostering connections between areas of knowledge that develop in parallel, but which could benefit from the lateral transfer of concepts and methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joanna Rutkowska
- Institute of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, BEES, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
| | - Malgorzata Lagisz
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, BEES, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
| | - Russell Bonduriansky
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, BEES, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
| | - Shinichi Nakagawa
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, BEES, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
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5
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Mossman JA, Mabeza RMS, Blake E, Mehta N, Rand DM. Age of Both Parents Influences Reproduction and Egg Dumping Behavior in Drosophila melanogaster. J Hered 2020; 110:300-309. [PMID: 30753690 PMCID: PMC6503451 DOI: 10.1093/jhered/esz009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2019] [Accepted: 02/04/2019] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Trans-generational maternal effects have been shown to influence a broad range of offspring phenotypes. However, very little is known about paternal trans-generational effects. Here, we tested the trans-generational effects of maternal and paternal age, and their interaction, on daughter and son reproductive fitness in Drosophila melanogaster. We found significant effects of parent ages on offspring reproductive fitness during a 10 day postfertilization period. In daughters, older (45 days old) mothers conferred lower reproductive fitness compared with younger mothers (3 days old). In sons, father’s age significantly affected reproductive fitness. The effects of 2 old parents were additive in both sexes and reproductive fitness was lowest when the focal individual had 2 old parents. Interestingly, daughter fertility was sensitive to father’s age but son fertility was insensitive to mother’s age, suggesting a sexual asymmetry in trans-generational effects. We found the egg-laying dynamics in daughters dramatically shaped this relationship. Daughters with 2 old parents demonstrated an extreme egg dumping behavior on day 1 and laid >2.35× the number of eggs than the other 3 age class treatments. Our study reveals significant trans-generational maternal and paternal age effects on fertility and an association with a novel egg laying behavioral phenotype in Drosophila.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jim A Mossman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Box G, Brown University, Providence, RI
| | - Russyan Mark S Mabeza
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Box G, Brown University, Providence, RI
| | - Emma Blake
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Box G, Brown University, Providence, RI
| | - Neha Mehta
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Box G, Brown University, Providence, RI
| | - David M Rand
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Box G, Brown University, Providence, RI
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6
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Nystrand M, Cassidy EJ, Dowling DK. The effects of a bacterial challenge on reproductive success of fruit flies evolved under low or high sexual selection. Ecol Evol 2018; 8:9341-9352. [PMID: 30377505 PMCID: PMC6194216 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.4450] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2018] [Revised: 06/24/2018] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 01/22/2023] Open
Abstract
The capacity of individuals to cope with stress, for example, from pathogen exposure, might decrease with increasing levels of sexual selection, although it remains unclear which sex should be more sensitive. Here, we measured the ability of each sex to maintain high reproductive success following challenges with either heat-killed bacteria or procedural control, across replicate populations of Drosophila melanogaster evolved under either high or low levels of sexual selection. Our experiment was run across four separate sampling blocks. We found an interaction between bacterial treatment, sexual selection treatment, and sampling block on female reproductive success. Specifically, and only in the fourth block, we observed that bacterial-challenged females that had evolved under high sexual selection, exhibited lower reproductive success than bacterial-challenged females that had evolved under low sexual selection. Furthermore, we could trace this block-specific effect to a reduction in viscosity of the ovipositioning substrate in the fourth block, in which females laid around 50% more eggs than in previous blocks. In contrast, patterns of male reproductive success were consistent across blocks. Males that evolved under high sexual selection exhibited higher reproductive success than their low-selection counterparts, regardless of whether they were subjected to a bacterial challenge or not. Our results are consistent with the prediction that heightened sexual selection will invoke male-specific evolutionary increases in reproductive fitness. Furthermore, our findings suggest that females might pay fitness costs when exposed to high levels of sexual selection, but that these costs may lie cryptic, and only be revealed under certain environmental contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Elizabeth J. Cassidy
- School of Biological SciencesMonash UniversityClaytonVic.Australia
- Department of Plant and Organismal BiologyUniversity of CopenhagenCopenhagenDenmark
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7
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Vega‐Trejo R, Kruuk LEB, Jennions MD, Head ML. What happens to offspring when parents are inbred, old or had a poor start in life? Evidence for sex‐specific parental effects. J Evol Biol 2018; 31:1138-1151. [DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13292] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2017] [Revised: 04/30/2018] [Accepted: 05/14/2018] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Regina Vega‐Trejo
- Division of Ecology & Evolution, Research School of Biology The Australian National University, Acton Canberra ACT Australia
| | - Loeske E. B. Kruuk
- Division of Ecology & Evolution, Research School of Biology The Australian National University, Acton Canberra ACT Australia
| | - Michael D. Jennions
- Division of Ecology & Evolution, Research School of Biology The Australian National University, Acton Canberra ACT Australia
| | - Megan L. Head
- Division of Ecology & Evolution, Research School of Biology The Australian National University, Acton Canberra ACT Australia
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8
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Brenman-Suttner DB, Long SQ, Kamesan V, de Belle JN, Yost RT, Kanippayoor RL, Simon AF. Progeny of old parents have increased social space in Drosophila melanogaster. Sci Rep 2018; 8:3673. [PMID: 29487349 PMCID: PMC5829228 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-21731-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2017] [Accepted: 02/09/2018] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
We report the effects of aging and parental age in Drosophila melanogaster on two types of responses to social cues: the choice of preferred social spacing in an undisturbed group and the response to the Drosophila stress odorant (dSO) emitted by stressed flies. The patterns of changes during aging were notably different for these two social responses. Flies were initially closer in space and then became further apart. However, the pattern of change in response to dSO followed a more typical decline in performance, similarly to changes in locomotion. Interestingly, the increased social space of old parents, as well as their reduced performance in avoiding dSO, was passed on to their progeny, such that young adults adopted the behavioural characteristic of their old parents. While the response to social cues was inherited, the changes in locomotion were not. We were able to scale the changes in the social space of parents and their progeny by accelerating or decelerating the physiological process of aging by increasing temperatures and exposure to oxidative stress, or via caloric restriction, respectively. Finally, when we aged only one parent, only the male progeny of old fathers and the progeny of very old mothers were more distant.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Shirley Q Long
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Vashine Kamesan
- Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Jade N de Belle
- Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | - Ryley T Yost
- Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
| | | | - Anne F Simon
- Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
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9
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Bloch Qazi MC, Miller PB, Poeschel PM, Phan MH, Thayer JL, Medrano CL. Transgenerational effects of maternal and grandmaternal age on offspring viability and performance in Drosophila melanogaster. JOURNAL OF INSECT PHYSIOLOGY 2017; 100:43-52. [PMID: 28529156 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2017.05.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2016] [Revised: 05/17/2017] [Accepted: 05/17/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
In non-social insects, fitness is determined by relative lifetime fertility. Fertility generally declines with age as a part of senescence. For females, senescence has profound effects on fitness by decreasing viability and fertility as well as those of her offspring. However, important aspects of these maternal effects, including the cause(s) of reduced offspring performance and carry-over effects of maternal age, are poorly understood. Drosophila melanogaster is a useful system for examining potential transgenerational effects of increasing maternal age, because of their use as a model system for studying the physiology and genetic architecture of both reproduction and senescence. To test the hypothesis that female senescence has transgenerational effects on offspring viability and development, we measured the effects of maternal age on offspring survival over two generations and under two larval densities in two laboratory strains of flies (Oregon-R and Canton-S). Transgenerational effects of maternal age influence embryonic viability and embryonic to adult viability in both strains. However, the generation causing the effects, and the magnitude and direction of those effects differed by genotype. The effects of maternal age on embryonic to adult viability when larvae are stressed was also genotype-specific. Maternal effects involve provisioning: older females produced smaller eggs and larger offspring. These results show that maternal age has profound, complex, and multigenerational consequences on several components of offspring fitness and traits. This study contributes to a body of work demonstrating that female age is an important condition affecting phenotypic variation and viability across multiple generations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret C Bloch Qazi
- Department of Biology, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, Saint Peter, MN 56082, USA.
| | - Paige B Miller
- Department of Biology, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, Saint Peter, MN 56082, USA.
| | - Penny M Poeschel
- Department of Biology, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, Saint Peter, MN 56082, USA.
| | - Mai H Phan
- Department of Biology, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, Saint Peter, MN 56082, USA.
| | - Joseph L Thayer
- Department of Biology, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, Saint Peter, MN 56082, USA.
| | - Christian L Medrano
- Department of Biology, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, Saint Peter, MN 56082, USA.
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10
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Nystrand M, Cassidy EJ, Dowling DK. No effect of mitochondrial genotype on reproductive plasticity following exposure to a non-infectious pathogen challenge in female or male Drosophila. Sci Rep 2017; 7:42009. [PMID: 28181526 PMCID: PMC5299430 DOI: 10.1038/srep42009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2016] [Accepted: 01/03/2017] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Mitochondrial genetic variation shapes the expression of life-history traits associated with reproduction, development and survival, and has also been associated with the prevalence and progression of infectious bacteria and viruses in humans. The breadth of these effects on multifaceted components of health, and their link to disease susceptibility, led us to test whether variation across mitochondrial haplotypes affected reproductive success following an immune challenge in the form of a non-infectious pathogen. We test this, by challenging male and female fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), harbouring each of three distinct mitochondrial haplotypes in an otherwise standardized genetic background, to either a mix of heat-killed bacteria, or a procedural control, prior to measuring their subsequent reproductive performance. The effect of the pathogen challenge on reproductive success did not differ across mitochondrial haplotypes; thus there was no evidence that patterns of reproductive plasticity were modified by the mitochondrial genotype following a non-infectious pathogen exposure. We discuss the implications of our data, and suggest future research avenues based on these results.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Nystrand
- School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia
| | - E J Cassidy
- School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.,Department of Plant and Organismal Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - D K Dowling
- School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia
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11
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Özpolat BD, Sloane ES, Zattara EE, Bely AE. Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi. EvoDevo 2016; 7:22. [PMID: 27708756 PMCID: PMC5051023 DOI: 10.1186/s13227-016-0059-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2016] [Accepted: 09/09/2016] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Gonads are specialized gamete-producing structures that, despite their functional importance, are generated by diverse mechanisms across groups of animals and can be among the most plastic organs of the body. Annelids, the segmented worms, are a group in which gonads have been documented to be plastic and to be able to regenerate, but little is known about what factors influence gonad development or how these structures regenerate. In this study, we aimed to identify factors that influence the presence and size of gonads and to investigate gonad regeneration in the small asexually reproducing annelid, Pristina leidyi. Results We found that gonad presence and size in asexual adult P. leidyi are highly variable across individuals and identified several factors that influence these structures. An extrinsic factor, food availability, and two intrinsic factors, individual age and parental age, strongly influence the presence and size of gonads in P. leidyi. We also found that following head amputation in this species, gonads can develop by morphallactic regeneration in previously non-gonadal segments. We also identified a sexually mature individual from our laboratory culture that demonstrates that, although our laboratory strain reproduces only asexually, it retains the potential to become fully sexual. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that gonads in P. leidyi display high phenotypic plasticity and flexibility with respect to their presence, their size, and the segments in which they can form. Considering our findings along with relevant data from other species, we find that, as a group, clitellate annelids can form gonads in at least four different contexts: post-starvation refeeding, fission, morphallactic regeneration, and epimorphic regeneration. This group is thus particularly useful for investigating the mechanisms involved in gonad formation and the evolution of post-embryonic phenotypic plasticity. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13227-016-0059-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- B Duygu Özpolat
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA ; Institut Jacques Monod, Paris, France
| | - Emily S Sloane
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA
| | - Eduardo E Zattara
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA ; Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN USA
| | - Alexandra E Bely
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA
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12
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Nystrand M, Cassidy EJ, Dowling DK. Transgenerational plasticity following a dual pathogen and stress challenge in fruit flies. BMC Evol Biol 2016; 16:171. [PMID: 27567640 PMCID: PMC5002108 DOI: 10.1186/s12862-016-0737-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2016] [Accepted: 08/08/2016] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Phenotypic plasticity operates across generations, when the parental environment affects phenotypic expression in the offspring. Recent studies in invertebrates have reported transgenerational plasticity in phenotypic responses of offspring when the mothers had been previously exposed to either live or heat-killed pathogens. Understanding whether this plasticity is adaptive requires a factorial design in which both mothers and their offspring are subjected to either the pathogen challenge or a control, in experimentally matched and mismatched combinations. Most prior studies exploring the capacity for pathogen-mediated transgenerational plasticity have, however, failed to adopt such a design. Furthermore, it is currently poorly understood whether the magnitude or direction of pathogen-mediated transgenerational responses will be sensitive to environmental heterogeneity. Here, we explored the transgenerational consequences of a dual pathogen and stress challenge administered in the maternal generation in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Prospective mothers were assigned to a non-infectious pathogen treatment consisting of an injection with heat-killed bacteria or a procedural control, and a stress treatment consisting of sleep deprivation or control. Their daughters and sons were similarly assigned to the same pathogen treatment, prior to measurement of their reproductive success. RESULTS We observed transgenerational interactions involving pathogen treatments of mothers and their offspring, on the reproductive success of daughters but not sons. These interactions were unaffected by sleep deprivation. CONCLUSIONS The direction of the transgenerational effects was not consistent with that predicted under a scenario of adaptive transgenerational plasticity. Instead, they were indicative of expectations based on terminal investment.
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Affiliation(s)
- M. Nystrand
- School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800 Australia
| | - E. J. Cassidy
- School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800 Australia
| | - D. K. Dowling
- School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800 Australia
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13
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Dew-Budd K, Jarnigan J, Reed LK. Genetic and Sex-Specific Transgenerational Effects of a High Fat Diet in Drosophila melanogaster. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0160857. [PMID: 27518304 PMCID: PMC4982694 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0160857] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2016] [Accepted: 07/26/2016] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
An organism's phenotype is the product of its environment and genotype, but an ancestor's environment can also be a contributing factor. The recent increase in caloric intake and decrease in physical activity of developed nations' populations is contributing to deteriorating health and making the study of the longer term impacts of a changing lifestyle a priority. The dietary habits of ancestors have been shown to affect phenotype in several organisms, including humans, mice, and the fruit fly. Whether the ancestral dietary effect is purely environmental or if there is a genetic interaction with the environment passed down for multiple generations, has not been determined previously. Here we used the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to investigate the genetic, sex-specific, and environmental effects of a high fat diet for three generations' on pupal body weights across ten genotypes. We also tested for genotype-specific transgenerational effects on metabolic pools and egg size across three genotypes. We showed that there were substantial differences in transgenerational responses to ancestral diet between genotypes and sexes through both first and second descendant generations. Additionally, there were differences in phenotypes between maternally and paternally inherited dietary effects. We also found a treated organism's reaction to a high fat diet was not a consistent predictor of its untreated descendants' phenotype. The implication of these results is that, given our interest in understanding and preventing metabolic diseases like obesity, we need to consider the contribution of ancestral environmental experiences. However, we need to be cautious when drawing population-level generalization from small studies because transgenerational effects are likely to exhibit substantial sex and genotype specificity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kelly Dew-Budd
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa, AL, United States of America
- School of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona; Tucson, AZ, United States of America
| | - Julie Jarnigan
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa, AL, United States of America
| | - Laura K. Reed
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa, AL, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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14
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Bonduriansky R, Runagall‐McNaull A, Crean AJ. The nutritional geometry of parental effects: maternal and paternal macronutrient consumption and offspring phenotype in a neriid fly. Funct Ecol 2016. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.12643] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Russell Bonduriansky
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences UNSW Australia Sydney NSW 2052 Australia
| | - Aidan Runagall‐McNaull
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences UNSW Australia Sydney NSW 2052 Australia
| | - Angela J. Crean
- Evolution & Ecology Research Centre School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences UNSW Australia Sydney NSW 2052 Australia
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15
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Ruden DM, Cingolani PE, Sen A, Qu W, Wang L, Senut MC, Garfinkel MD, Sollars VE, Lu X. Epigenetics as an answer to Darwin's "special difficulty," Part 2: natural selection of metastable epialleles in honeybee castes. Front Genet 2015; 6:60. [PMID: 25759717 PMCID: PMC4338822 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2015.00060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2014] [Accepted: 02/08/2015] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
In a recent perspective in this journal, Herb (2014) discussed how epigenetics is a possible mechanism to circumvent Charles Darwin's "special difficulty" in using natural selection to explain the existence of the sterile-fertile dimorphism in eusocial insects. Darwin's classic book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" explains how natural selection of the fittest individuals in a population can allow a species to adapt to a novel or changing environment. However, in bees and other eusocial insects, such as ants and termites, there exist two or more castes of genetically similar females, from fertile queens to multiple sub-castes of sterile workers, with vastly different phenotypes, lifespans, and behaviors. This necessitates the selection of groups (or kin) rather than individuals in the evolution of honeybee hives, but group and kin selection theories of evolution are controversial and mechanistically uncertain. Also, group selection would seem to be prohibitively inefficient because the effective population size of a colony is reduced from thousands to a single breeding queen. In this follow-up perspective, we elaborate on possible mechanisms for how a combination of both epigenetics, specifically, the selection of metastable epialleles, and genetics, the selection of mutations generated by the selected metastable epialleles, allows for a combined means for selection amongst the fertile members of a species to increase colony fitness. This "intra-caste evolution" hypothesis is a variation of the epigenetic directed genetic error hypothesis, which proposes that selected metastable epialleles increase genetic variability by directing mutations specifically to the epialleles. Natural selection of random metastable epialleles followed by a second round of natural selection of random mutations generated by the metastable epialleles would allow a way around the small effective population size of eusocial insects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Douglas M. Ruden
- Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, C. S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development and Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors, Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Wayne State UniversityDetroit, MI, USA
| | - Pablo E. Cingolani
- School of Computer Science and Genome Quebec Innovation Centre, McGill UniversityMontreal, QC, Canada
| | - Arko Sen
- Department of Pharmacology, Wayne State UniversityDetroit, MI, USA
| | - Wen Qu
- Department of Pharmacology, Wayne State UniversityDetroit, MI, USA
| | - Luan Wang
- Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Wayne State UniversityDetroit, MI, USA
| | - Marie-Claude Senut
- Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Wayne State UniversityDetroit, MI, USA
| | - Mark D. Garfinkel
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama in HuntsvilleHuntsville, AL, USA
| | - Vincent E. Sollars
- Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Marshall UniversityHuntington, WV, USA
| | - Xiangyi Lu
- Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Wayne State UniversityDetroit, MI, USA
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