Maternal effects impact decision-making in a viviparous lizard
| Autor: | Erik Wapstra, Ben Halliwell, Geoffrey M. While, Kirke L. Munch, Daniel W. A. Noble, Iain S. Koolhof, Thomas Botterill-James |
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| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine Offspring Ontogeny Foraging Decision Making Biology 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences 03 medical and health sciences Cognition Viviparity Nonmammalian biology.animal Animals Lizard Maternal effect Lizards Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous) 030104 developmental biology Maternal Exposure Trait Gestation Female Animal Behaviour General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Food Deprivation Demography |
| Zdroj: | Biology letters. 14(4) |
| ISSN: | 1744-957X |
| Popis: | Stressful conditions experienced during early development can have deleterious effects on offspring morphology, physiology and behaviour. However, few studies have examined how developmental stress influences an individual's cognitive phenotype. Using a viviparous lizard, we show that the availability of food resources to a mother during gestation influences a key component of her offspring's cognitive phenotype: their decision-making. Offspring from females who experienced low resource availability during gestation did better in an anti-predatory task that relied on spatial associations to guide their decisions, whereas offspring from females who experienced high resource availability during gestation did better in a foraging task that relied on colour associations to inform their decisions. This shows that the prenatal environment can influence decision-making in animals, a cognitive trait with functional implications later in life. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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