The specificity of sperm-mediated paternal effects in threespine sticklebacks.

Autor: Chen E; Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA., Zielinski C; Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA., Deno J; Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA., Singh R; Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA., Bell AM; Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.; Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.; Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA., Hellmann JK; Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.; Present address: Department of Biology, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Behavioral ecology and sociobiology [Behav Ecol Sociobiol] 2021 Apr; Vol. 75 (4). Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Mar 16.
DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-03001-8
Abstrakt: Parental effects may help offspring respond to challenging environments, but whether parental exposure to different environmental challenges induces similar responses in offspring is largely unknown. We compared the offspring of threespine stickleback ( Gasterosteus aculeatus ) fathers who had been exposed to a potentially threatening stimulus (net), a native predator (sculpin), or who had been left unexposed (control). Relative to offspring of control fathers, offspring of sculpin-exposed fathers were more responsive (greater change in activity) to a simulated sculpin predator attack, while offspring of net-exposed fathers were less responsive (fewer antipredator behaviors) and showed altered stress responses compared to the control. To evaluate whether parental exposure primes offspring to respond to specific stimuli (e.g., offspring of net-exposed fathers respond most strongly to a net), we then exposed offspring of each paternal treatment to nets, native sculpin models, or non-native trout models. Paternal treatment did not influence offspring response to different stimuli; instead, offspring were generally more responsive to the native sculpin predator compared to nets or non-native trout predator, suggesting that sticklebacks have innate predator recognition of native predators. Collectively, these results underscore that, while parental exposure to non-ecologically relevant stressors elicits effects in intergenerational studies, these findings may not mirror those produced when parents encounter ecologically relevant stressors. Knowing that parental effects can be predator-specific furthers our understanding of the ways in which parental effects may evolve to be adaptive and suggests the potential for transgenerational plasticity to affect how animals respond to human induced environmental change, including non-native predators.
Competing Interests: Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz: