Morphological constraint on egg size: a challenge to optimal egg size theory?

Congdon, Justin D.; Gibbons, J. Whitfield

doi:10.1073/pnas.84.12.4145

Cited by 239 publications

(225 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

203

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Robertson (1988) suggested that ospring size increases with maternal size in chydorids as a result of constraints such as size of the brood pouch or capacity of the ovaries. Small individuals with small brood pouches or small ovaries can only produce small eggs, a hypothesis also invoked for turtles (Congdon and Gibbons, 1987). However, as was pointed out by Glazier (1992), this hypothesis alone is not enough to explain the relationship between ospring size and maternal size, as he found that smaller females, raised at lower rations, produced eggs just as large as larger females at higher rations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Offspring size and parental fitness in Daphnia magna

Boersma

1997

Evolutionary Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SummaryVariation in ospring size and number has been described for a wide range of organisms. Many theoretical models predict that in a given environment, the production of one single ospring size would yield the highest parental ®tness. In most planktonic cladocerans, however, ospring size has been found to increase with size and age of the mother, and as individuals of variable size often co-occur within a population, ospring of variable sizes can be produced simultaneously. In this study, I investigated the relationship between age of the mother and size of her ospring to assess at what age of the mother the optimal ospring size was produced. Optimal ospring size was de®ned as that size of the ospring yielding the highest parental ®tness, which translates to a de®nition of optimal ospring size as the one having the highest juvenile ®tness per unit eort put in these juveniles. I observed that the youngest females produced ospring with the highest juvenile ®tness per unit eort, and hence concluded that ospring produced by these females were of optimal size. Larger ospring produced by older females were estimated to yield only 70% of the potential ®tness of optimally sized ospring.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Offspring size and parental fitness in Daphnia magna

Boersma

1997

Evolutionary Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such constraints are relatively well characterized in reptiles. In turtles, pelvic girdle aperture, which is a function of maternal body size, places an upper limit on egg size (Congdon and Gibbons, 1987). Pelvic girdle aperture has also been suggested to limit neonate size in primates (Leutenegger, 1979).…”

Section: Morphological Constraints On Offspring Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

Plant and Animal Reproductive Strategies: Lessons from Offspring Size and Number Tradeoffs

Dani

Kodandaramaiah

2017

Front. Ecol. Evol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The tradeoff between offspring size and number is ubiquitous and manifestly similar in plants and animals despite fundamental differences between the evolutionary histories of these two major life forms. Fecundity (offspring number) primarily affects parental fitness, while offspring size underpins the fitness of parents and offspring. We provide an overview of theoretical models dealing with offspring size and fitness relationships. We follow that with a detailed examination of life-history constraints and environmental effects on offspring size and number, separately in plants and animals. The emphasis is on seed plants, but we endeavor to also summarize information from distinct animal groups-insects, fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Furthermore, we analyse genetic controls on offspring size and number in two model organisms-Arabidopsis and Drosophila. Despite the deep evolutionary divergence between plants and animals, we find four trends in reproductive strategy that are common to both lineages: (i) offspring size is generally less variable than offspring number, (ii) offspring size increases with increasing parent body size, (iii) maternal genes restrict offspring size and increase offspring numbers, while zygotic genes act to increase offspring size; such parent-offspring conflicts are enhanced when there is sibling rivalry, and (iv) variation in offspring size increases under sub-optimal (harsh) environmental conditions. The most salient difference between plants and animals is that the latter tend to produce larger (fewer) offspring under sub-optimal conditions while seed plants invest in smaller (many) seeds, suggesting that maternal genetic control over offspring size increases in plants but decreases in animals with parental care. The time is ripe for greater experimental exploration of genetic controls on reproductive allocation and parent-offspring conflicts in plants and animals under sub-optimal (harsh) environments.

show abstract

“…Congdon and Gibbons 1987;Fleming and Gross 1990;Sinervo and Doughty 1996;Vallin and Nissling 2000;Berkeley et al 2004;Marshall and Keough 2004). In marine fishes, predation and starvation are two major factors determining survival of offspring in the larval phase (Bailey and Houde 1989) and susceptibility of larvae to these factors depends on larval body size (Rice et al 1987;Buckley et al 1991a, b).…”

Section: Plausible Interaction Between Maternal Influences and Femalementioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Large Male-Selective Harvesting on Reproduction: Illustration with Large Decapod Crustacean Resources

Sato¹

2012

Aqua-BioSci. Monogr. (ABSM)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Keywordsbeen reported in many species of vertebrates and invertebrates (e.g. Bianchi et al. 2000;Branch and Odendaal 2003;Roy et al. 2003;Harvey et al. 2006).In a wide range of taxa, body size is one of the key determinants of fitness in both males and females (Andersson 1994). For example, body size is positively correlated with reproductive fitness (e.g. mating success and fecundity). Mostly, larger males are stronger competitors for females (e.g. Hoefler 2007) or can provide more ejaculated sperm (e.g. Jivoff 1997), or better care for the offspring (e.g. Kolm 2002). In females, body size positively correlates with egg size (e.g. Einum and Fleming 1999), number of spawning (e.g. Claramunt et al. 2007), number of eggs spawned (e.g. Evans et al. 2008), or quality of larvae (e.g. Berkeley et al. 2004). Therefore, mate choice is non-random in the majority of animal species (Real 1990), and males and females prefer larger mates mutually (e.g. Sandvik et al. 2000;Herdman et al. 2004; Aquiloni and Gherardi AbstractTo signal a need for caution for present large male-selective harvesting practices, negative impacts of the large male-selective harvesting on reproductive output in large decapod crustacean resources are introduced with emphasis on my own work with spiny king crab Paralithodes brevipes, coconut crab Birgus latro, and the stone crab Hapalogaster dentata. The large male-selective harvestings for several large decapod crustaceans have changed their population demographic structure by decreasing mean male size and skewing sex ratio towards females. By several field and laboratory experiments, the change of population demographic structure was anticipated to decrease female reproductive success in the resources (i.e. reproductive output of the harvested populations) through a decrease in sperm availability for females because of male size-dependent reproductive potentials and slow sperm recovery rate. Furthermore, reproductive output and stability of the large male-selective harvested resources were also anticipated to decline by a decrease in mate availability for females, attributing to combination of female mate choice for larger males with negative effects of female delayed mating and/or maternal influences. To establish the optimal management practices, the details of the mating system and reproductive ecology of each targeted species should be investigated.

show abstract

Morphological constraint on egg size: a challenge to optimal egg size theory?

Cited by 239 publications

References 17 publications

Offspring size and parental fitness in Daphnia magna

Offspring size and parental fitness in Daphnia magna

Plant and Animal Reproductive Strategies: Lessons from Offspring Size and Number Tradeoffs

Impacts of Large Male-Selective Harvesting on Reproduction: Illustration with Large Decapod Crustacean Resources

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About