Transgenerational effects of nutrition are different for sons and daughters

Abstract

Food shortage is an important selective factor shaping animal life-history trajectories. Yet, despite its role, many aspects of the interaction between parental and offspring food environments remain unclear. In this study, we measured developmental plasticity in response to food availability over two generations and tested the relative contribution of paternal and maternal food availability to the performance of offspring reared under matched and mismatched food environments. We applied a cross-generational split-brood design using the springtail Orchesella cincta, which is found in the litter layer of temperate forests. The results show adverse effects of food limitation on several life-history traits and reproductive performance of both parental sexes. Food conditions of both parents contributed to the offspring phenotypic variation, providing evidence for transgenerational effects of diet. Parental diet influenced sons' age at maturity and daughters' weight at maturity. Specifically, being born to food-restricted parents allowed offspring to alleviate the adverse effects of food limitation, without reducing their performance under well-fed conditions. Thus, parents raised on a poor diet primed their offspring for a more efficient resource use. However, a mismatch between maternal and offspring food environments generated sex-specific adverse effects: female offspring born to well-fed mothers showed a decreased flexibility to deal with low-food conditions. Notably, these maternal effects of food availability were not observed in the sons. Finally, we found that the relationship between age and size at maturity differed between males and females and showed that offspring life-history strategies in O. cincta are primed differently by the parents.

Lineage- and Sex-Dependent Behavioral and Biochemical Transgenerational Consequences of Developmental Exposure to Lead, Prenatal Stress, and Combined Lead and Prenatal Stress in Mice

“…Importantly, these effects were seen even with full outbreeding using unexposed C57BL/6J mice, compared with transgenerational studies where treated animals are bred to each other. Although differences by sex in F3 consequences are certainly recognized (Dew-Budd et al 2016;Zizzari et al 2016), the contribution of lineage transfer in relation to sex, and potential dynamic changes in response to ongoing environmental conditions, have received far less attention (Burggren 2015).…”

Parental and offspring larval diets interact to influence life-history traits and infection with dengue virus inAedes aegypti

“…The lower nutrient requirements of the male mosquito probably allowed males to develop more quickly regardless of parental nutrition. A study conducted on the collembolan Orchesella cincta showed that parental nutrition did not influence male development time; however, it did influence male weight at maturity and the production of spermatophores [ 56 ]. When considering parental effects on Ae.…”

What happens to offspring when parents are inbred, old or had a poor start in life? Evidence for sex‐specific parental effects

“…Bonduriansky & Head, ; Mashoodh et al ., ; Crean & Bonduriansky, ; Zajitschek et al ., ; Fay et al ., ). For example, a father's diet influences offspring size and age at maturity in springtails (Zizzari et al ., ). This could be due to the presence of nongenetic factors in ejaculates, such as lipids and proteins that enter the zygote; or to epigenetic changes in paternal DNA that then affect gene expression in zygotes (Crean & Bonduriansky, ; Holman & Price, ).…”