Maternal effects and their consequences for offspring fitness in the Yellow Dung Fly

Abstract

Summary 1.Maternal adult diet and body size influence the fecundity of a female and possibly the quality and the performance of her offspring via egg size or egg quality. In laboratory experiments, negative effects in the offspring generation have often been obscured by optimal rearing conditions. 2. To estimate these effects in the Yellow Dung Fly, Scathophaga stercoraria, how maternal body size and adult nutritional status affected her fecundity, longevity and egg size were first investigated. 3. Second, it was investigated how female age and adult nutritional experience, mediated through the effects of egg size or egg quality, influenced the performance of offspring at different larval densities. 4. Maternal size was less important than maternal adult feeding in increasing reproductive output. Without food restriction, large females had larger clutch sizes and higher oviposition rates, whereas under food restriction this advantage was reversed in favour of small females. 5. Offspring from mothers reared under nutritional stress experienced reduced fitness in terms of egg mortality and survival to adult emergence. If the offspring from lowquality eggs survived, the transmitted maternal food deficiency only affected adult male body size under stressful larval environments. 6. Smaller egg sizes due to maternal age only slightly affected the performance of the offspring under all larval conditions.

Effects of maternal diet and host quality on oviposition patterns and offspring performance in a seed beetle (Coleoptera: Bruchidae)

“…Thus, body weight in small seeds was almost identical in progeny from high-or low-quality-diet mothers, which differed in their oviposition response to small seeds (increased egg size in high-quality-diet mothers, decreased egg size in low-quality-diet mothers). This suggests the existence of maternal diet effects on egg quality in M. eulophus, as has been described for other insect species and birds (Rossiter 1993;Jann and Ward 1999;Royle et al 2003;McGraw 2006), which led to similar progeny performance in small seeds despite clear differences in egg size. Fox and Savalli (2000) reported for the seed beetle S. limbatus that maternal host effects on progeny survival in a novel host remained after accounting for variation in egg size, thus suggesting the occurrence of maternally mediated plasticity in egg composition.…”

Effects of maternal and offspring environmental conditions on growth, development and diapause in latitudinal yellow dung fly populations

“…Therefore, effects of egg size and nutrients on overwintering should be weak and masked by any presumably stronger effects of early growth and development during the intermediate larval stage. Weak effects of egg size on larval performance agree with 2 previous studies of yellow dung flies (Jann & Ward 1999, Blanckenhorn 2000, but contradict several other studies of other species demonstrating the importance of maternal investment for offspring fitness in large eggs with high energy content, even at later stages (e.g. Azevedo et al 1997, Kaplan 1998.…”

Effects of adult nutrition on female reproduction in a fruit-feeding butterfly: The role of fruit decay and dietary lipids

“…In B. anynana as well as in many other insect species egg to adult survival is largely determined by egg hatching rates and neonate survival (e.g. Jann and Ward, 1999;Fox et al, 2003). Hatching rates of eggs deposited early in the oviposition period were very similar across dietary treatment groups.…”