The role of maternal effects in adaptation to different diets

Abstract

The environmental influences of mothers on offspring traits, or maternal effects, often arise from dietary differences experienced by mothers. However, few studies have explored if and how maternal effects facilitate adaptation to new host plants. To address this, we compared the maternal and direct effects arising from dietary differences in two populations of the large milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus that live on and feed on the seeds from different hosts. We compared a laboratory population, which has been reared for over 400 generations on sunflower seeds and is now adapted to use these as a host, to the wild population, which is adapted to the ancestral diet of toxic milkweed seeds. We first tested for changes in maternal effects, and then examined offspring performance and survivorship. We found evidence for evolution of the maternal effect facilitating the use of a novel host. However, the strongest effects were population differences and direct dietary effects for all traits. Offspring performance was more strongly influenced by diet than maternal effects. Survivorship depended on population and offspring diet, and their interaction, but was unaffected by maternal diet or other interactions. In the artificially evolved population, diet breadth was increased rather than evolving specialization. Our results suggest changes in maternal effects are likely to be weak compared to direct effects of host plants and other adaptations in adaptation to a novel host.

The nutritional geometry of parental effects: maternal and paternal macronutrient consumption and offspring phenotype in a neriid fly

“…; Warner & Lovern ; Newcombe et al . ; Newcombe, Moore & Moore ), while fathers can affect offspring development via proteins and RNA in the sperm and seminal fluid (Wong et al . ; Vojtech et al .…”

“…alternative hosts: see Fox, Waddell & Mousseau ; Newcombe et al . , ; Newcombe, Moore & Moore ), but is problematic in the more typical case where environments vary along a continuous gradient. Like direct effects of environment on phenotype (developmental plasticity), environmentally induced parental effects should generally be viewed as norms of reaction – i.e.…”

Effects of variable maternal temperature on offspring development and reproduction of Rhopalosiphum padi, a serious global pest of wheat

“…The environments that mothers experience (light, temperature, host and nutrients), together with maternal behaviour (host selection, sexual selection, spawning behaviour and parental care) can affect the phenotypic differences of their offspring (Rossiter, ; Mousseau & Fox, ; Mousseau & Fox, ; Newcombe et al ., ), and this influence is considered a maternal effect. Some parental environmental factors, including temperature, nutrition, photoperiod and population density, could affect offspring phenotypes of insect species (Rossiter, ; Gilchrist & Huey, ; Chen et al ., ; Reznik & Samartsev, ).…”

Maternal effects and maternal selection arising from variation in allocation of free amino acid to eggs

“…Our previous work on the milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus , has shown that female diet affects offspring fitness through maternal effects (Newcombe et al. ). In addition, maternal effects are known to be of importance in O. fasciatus life history (Groeters and Dingle , ).…”

“…The two source populations we studied have different evolutionary histories and are adapted to different diets (Newcombe et al. ). One (Kentucky) is formed of individuals collected from the wild.…”