Maternal and paternal influences on early life history traits and processes of Baltic cod Gadus morhua

Abstract

Embryo survival, larval standard length, yolk-sac area, yolk utilization and resistance to starvation were significantly influenced by the female parent and the interaction between both parents of Baltic Sea cod Gadus morhua in a gamete factorial cross of 3 females and 5 males in all possible combinations. The proportion of variance in embryonic survivorship that was due to maternity during incubation was significant during the first 4 d, but was insignificant during the 5 to 9 d interval. During the 5 to 9 d interval, the male-female interaction was significant. Standard lengths at hatch and 5 d post hatch and specific growth rate of unfed yolk-sac larvae were strongly influenced by the female. Equivalent amounts of variation in larval resistance to starvation were explained by maternity and bi-parental interaction. Paternity alone did not explain a significant amount of variation for the traits or processes examined. The bi-parental interactions reported demonstrate a female's choice of mate could significantly influence the early life survivorship of Baltic cod offspring.

Influence of condition on behavior and survival potential of a newly settled coral reef fish, the bluehead wrasse Thalassoma bifasciatum

“…Recent work has identified the benefits that larger and older females can impart to their offspring, including a greater oil globule volume, larger hatch size, faster larval growth, greater resistance to starvation, and increased survival (Berkeley et al 2004, Green & McCormick 2005, Trippel et al 2005. Our study links early life history traits, condition levels, and specific behaviors such as swimming and foraging for newly settled labrid recruits.…”

The importance of parentage in assessing temperature effects on fish early life history: a review of the experimental literature

“…In fish populations, maternal effects are increasingly being recognized as significant drivers of offspring variation (see reviews by Heath and Blouw 1998;Green 2008;Marshall et al 2008). Although the most commonly reported maternal effect in fish populations is the positive correlation between maternal size and egg/offspring size (Chambers and Leggett 1996), variation between female spawners has also been shown to affect embryonic survival (Nagler et al 2000;Trippel et al 2005;Nadeau et al 2009), yolk size and composition (Kamler 2005), growth rate (Green and McCormick 2005), metabolic physiology (Patterson et al 2004b;Pakkasmaa et al 2006), stress response (Heath et al 1993), and swim ability (Garenc et al 1998). Despite the predominant role of females in the determination of fecundity, site selection and yolk provisioning, there is increasing evidence that male spawners can exert significant paternal effects on offspring traits (Evans and Geffen 1998;Rideout et al 2004;Probst et al 2006;Morasse et al 2008).…”

The influence of temperature on the development of Baltic Sea sprat (Sprattus sprattus) eggs and yolk sac larvae

“…Whether this had a potential effect on development or viability could not be assessed, but results from further experiments under different salinity regimes during incubation suggested the effect to be non-significant (C. Petereit et al, unpublished data). Since eggs from only one female were used for each trial, the different survival rates might have reflected differences in egg quality due to maternal effects (Brooks et al 1997;Chambers 1997;Trippel et al 1997Trippel et al , 2005. Thompson et al (1981) performed experiments on sprat egg development from the English Channel using 19 different temperatures from 4.5 to 20°C and found successful development over all temperatures, although from 17.4 to 20°C hatching occurred prematurely before many eggs reached stage IV.…”