Context‐Dependent Intergenerational Effects: The Interaction between Past and Present Environments and Its Effect on Population Dynamics

Intergenerational effects arise when parents’ actions influence the reproduction and survival of their offspring and possibly later descendants. Models suggest that intergenerational effects have important implications for both population dynamical patterns and the evolution of life‐history traits....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American naturalist 2006-02, Vol.167 (2), p.206-215
Main Authors: Plaistow, Stewart J., Lapsley, Craig T., Benton, Tim G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acaridae - anatomy & histology
Acaridae - physiology
Adults
Age
Age Factors
Animal populations
Animals
Effects
Eggs
Environment
Environmental conditions
Fecundity
Feeding Behavior
Female
Female animals
Food
Food security
Generations
Hypotheses
Male
Mathematical vectors
Nature
Ovum - cytology
Phenotypic traits
Population Dynamics
Reproduction
Studies
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Summary:Intergenerational effects arise when parents’ actions influence the reproduction and survival of their offspring and possibly later descendants. Models suggest that intergenerational effects have important implications for both population dynamical patterns and the evolution of life‐history traits. However, these will depend on the nature and duration of intergenerational effects. Here we show that manipulating parental food environments of soil mites produced intergenerational effects that were still detectable in the life histories of descendents three generations later. Intergenerational effects varied in different environments and from one generation to the next. In low‐food environments, variation in egg size altered a trade‐off between age and size at maturity and had little effect on the size of eggs produced in subsequent generations. Consequently, intergenerational effects decreased over time. In contrast, in high‐food environments, variation in egg size predominantly influenced a trade‐off between fecundity and adult survival and generated increasing variation in egg size. As a result, the persistence and significance of intergenerational effects varied between high‐ and low‐food environments. Context‐dependent intergenerational effects can therefore have complex but important effects on population dynamics.
ISSN:0003-0147
1537-5323
DOI:10.1086/499380