Does the relationship between offspring size and performance change across the life-history?

Dias, Gustavo Muniz; Marshall, Dustin J.

doi:10.1111/j.1600-0706.2009.17725.x

Cited by 37 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(97 reference statements)

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“…3) demonstrates that the maternal nest environment will affect offspring phenotypes in absolute terms. Hence, if one is interested in how per-offspring investment affects offspring performance, then the present study shows that removing offspring from the context in which offspring were provisioned can result in inaccurate estimates of the offspring size-performance relationship (Hutchings 1991;Einum and Fleming 1999;Dias and Marshall 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Body size-specific maternal effects on the offspring environment shape juvenile phenotypes in Atlantic salmon

Rollinson

Hutchings

2011

Oecologia

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Positive associations between maternal investment per offspring and maternal body size have been explained as adaptive responses by females to predictable, body size-specific maternal influences on the offspring's environment. As a larger per-offspring investment increases maternal fitness when the quality of the offspring environment is low, optimal egg size may increase with maternal body size if larger mothers create relatively poor environments for their eggs or offspring. Here, we manipulate egg size and rearing environments (gravel size, nest depth) of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment. We find that the incubation environment typical of large and small mothers can exert predictable effects on offspring phenotypes, but the nature of these effects provides little support to the prediction that smaller eggs are better suited to nest environments created by smaller females (and vice versa). Our data indicate that the magnitude and direction of phenotypic differences between small and large offspring vary among maternal nest environments, underscoring the point that removal of offspring from the environmental context in which they are provisioned in the wild can bias experimentally derived associations between offspring size and metrics of offspring fitness. The present study also contributes to a growing literature which suggests that the fitness consequences of egg size variation are often more pronounced during the early juvenile stage, as opposed to the egg or larval stage.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Body size-specific maternal effects on the offspring environment shape juvenile phenotypes in Atlantic salmon

Rollinson

Hutchings

2011

Oecologia

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“…One mechanism for this diminished effect is compensatory growth, whereby initial differences among offspring are reduced due to increases in the relative growth rate of smaller offspring (Wilson et al. 2007; Dias and Marshall 2010). Other sources of variation in early development include maternal and paternal effects that can cause cohort differences in various fitness components (Lindstrom 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There may also be ontogenetic changes in the strength and direction of size selection (Sogard 1997). Thus, using estimates of the relationship between offspring size and offspring performance based on early life history stages alone could result in error in both strength and direction of the relationship (Dias and Marshall 2010). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offspring size at weaning affects survival to recruitment and reproductive performance of primiparous gray seals

Bowen

Heyer

McMillan

et al. 2015

Ecology and Evolution

118

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Offspring size affects survival and subsequent reproduction in many organisms. However, studies of offspring size in large mammals are often limited to effects on juveniles because of the difficulty of following individuals to maturity. We used data from a long-term study of individually marked gray seals (Halichoerus grypus; Fabricius, 1791) to test the hypothesis that larger offspring have higher survival to recruitment and are larger and more successful primiparous mothers than smaller offspring. Between 1998 and 2002, 1182 newly weaned female pups were branded with unique permanent marks on Sable Island, Canada. Each year through 2012, all branded females returning to the breeding colony were identified in weekly censuses and a subset were captured and measured. Females that survived were significantly longer offspring than those not sighted, indicating size-selective mortality between weaning and recruitment. The probability of female survival to recruitment varied among cohorts and increased nonlinearly with body mass at weaning. Beyond 51.5 kg (mean population weaning mass) weaning mass did not influence the probability of survival. The probability of female survival to recruitment increased monotonically with body length at weaning. Body length at primiparity was positively related to her body length and mass at weaning. Three-day postpartum mass (proxy for birth mass) of firstborn pups was also positively related to body length of females when they were weaned. However, females that were longer or heavier when they were weaned did not wean heavier firstborn offspring.

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“…This mechanism can explain every pattern that we observed in the present study, and this explanation is perhaps more parsimonious than the oxygen-stress hypothesis described above. It seems less likely that adaptive interpopulation eggsize variation would be maintained by size asymmetries in larval strength, as this explanation suggests that small juveniles expend more energy emerging from small gravels, which may have subsequent effects on growth and survival (e.g., Dias and Marshall 2010). Clearly, more research is needed to understand both the mechanism responsible for the pattern of emergence observed in the present study and to understand the egg size -gravel size correlation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Why does egg size of salmonids increase with the mean size of population spawning gravels?

RollinsonNjal

Hutchings

2011

Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci.

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Population mean egg size of salmonids increases with the mean size of gravels in which a population spawns. A long-standing hypothesis is that large larvae cannot navigate small-gravel interstices, so mothers must decrease per-offspring investment when spawning gravels are small. We manipulated the size of incubation gravels and egg size of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) to test whether size-related entombment of larvae occurs. We find little evidence of size-related entombment, but we find evidence that gravel size does not affect all larval sizes equally. Larger larvae emerge from small gravels before development is complete and with a visible yolk sac, possibly due to oxygen limitation in small gravels. Smaller larvae always complete development in the gravel and emerge without a yolk sac. Although growth and survival may increase with juvenile size following yolk-sac absorption, juveniles with yolk sacs may fare worse when depredation rates are high. The egg size -gravel size correlation may therefore reflect increased postemergence mortality among larger offspring in smallgravel environments. Alternatively, compaction stress in fine gravels coupled with size asymmetries in larval strength may have caused the patterns that we observed, in which case our data may not help explain the egg size -gravel size correlation.Résumé : La taille moyenne des oeufs d'une population de salmonidés augmente en fonction de la taille moyenne du gravier dans lequel cette population fraie. Une hypothèse de longue date veut que les larves de grande taille ne peuvent pas se déplacer dans les interstices de gravier fin et que les mères doivent réduire leur investissement par rejeton lorsque le gravier de fraie est fin. Nous avons manipulé la taille du gravier d'incubation et la taille des oeufs chez des saumons atlantiques (Salmo salar) afin de tester s'il se produit un ensevelissement des larves en fonction de la taille. Nous trouvons peu d'indications d'un ensevelissement relié à la taille, mais il y a des preuves que la taille du gravier n'affecte pas toutes les tailles de larves de même manière. Les larves plus grandes émergent des graviers fins avant la fin de leur développement et avec un sac vitellin bien visible, peut-être à cause de la limitation de l'oxygène dans les graviers fins. Les larves plus petites complètent toujours leur développement dans le gravier et émergent sans sac vitellin. Bien que la croissance et la survie puissent augmenter en fonction de la taille des jeunes après la absorption du sac vitellin, les jeunes avec sac vitellin peuvent réussir moins bien lorsque les taux de prédation sont élevés. La corrélation entre la taille des oeufs et la taille du gravier peut donc refléter une mortalité accrue après l'émergence chez les rejetons de plus grande taille dans les environnements de gravier fin. Par ailleurs, le stress de compaction dans les graviers fins combiné aux asymétries reliées à la taille dans les forces des larves peuvent avoir causé les patrons que nous avons observés; dans ce cas, nos données pe...

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Does the relationship between offspring size and performance change across the life-history?

Cited by 37 publications

References 59 publications

Body size-specific maternal effects on the offspring environment shape juvenile phenotypes in Atlantic salmon

Body size-specific maternal effects on the offspring environment shape juvenile phenotypes in Atlantic salmon

Offspring size at weaning affects survival to recruitment and reproductive performance of primiparous gray seals

Why does egg size of salmonids increase with the mean size of population spawning gravels?

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