scholarly journals Indirect parental effects on offspring viability by egg-derived fluids in an external fertilizer

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1940) ◽  
pp. 20202538
Author(s):  
Rowan A. Lymbery ◽  
Jacob D. Berson ◽  
Jonathan P. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Mytilus Galloprovincialis ◽  
Fertilization Rate ◽  
Model System ◽  
Parental Effects ◽  
Major Area ◽  
Offspring Fitness ◽  
Gamete Interactions ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Nongenetic Inheritance

The capacity for parents to influence offspring phenotypes via nongenetic inheritance is currently a major area of focus in evolutionary biology. Intriguing recent evidence suggests that sexual interactions among males and females, both before and during mating, are important mediators of such effects. Sexual interactions typically extend beyond gamete release, involving both sperm and eggs, and their associated fluids. However, the potential for gamete-level interactions to induce nongenetic parental effects remains under-investigated. Here, we test for such effects using an emerging model system for studying gamete interactions, the external fertilizer Mytilus galloprovincialis . We employed a split-ejaculate design to test whether exposing sperm to egg-derived chemicals (ECs) from a female would affect fertilization rate and offspring viability when those sperm were used to fertilize a different female's eggs. We found separate, significant effects of ECs from non-fertilizing females on both fertilization rate and offspring viability. The offspring viability effect indicates that EC-driven interactions can have nongenetic implications for offspring fitness independent of the genotypes inherited by those offspring. These findings provide a rare test of indirect parental effects driven exclusively by gamete-level interactions, and to our knowledge the first evidence that such effects occur via the gametic fluids of females.

scholarly journals Parental effects and the evolution of phenotypic memory

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bram Kuijper ◽  
Rufus A Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Local Environment ◽  
Parental Effects ◽  
Bet Hedging ◽  
Changing Environments ◽  
Structured Population ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Parental Phenotype ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Nongenetic Inheritance

Abstract Despite growing evidence for nongenetic inheritance, the ecological conditions that favor the evolution of heritable parental or grandparental effects remain poorly understood. Here, we systematically explore the evolution of parental effects in a patch-structured population with locally changing environments. When selection favors the production of a mix of offspring types, this mix differs according to the parental phenotype, implying that parental effects are favored over selection for bet-hedging in which the mixture of offspring phenotypes produced does not depend on the parental phenotype. Positive parental effects (generating a positive correlation between parental and offspring phenotype) are favored in relatively stable habitats and when different types of local environment are roughly equally abundant, and can give rise to long-term parental inheritance of phenotypes. By contrast, unstable habitats can favor negative parental effects (generating a negative correlation between parental and offspring phenotype), and under these circumstances even slight asymmetries in the abundance of local environmental states select for marked asymmetries in transmission fidelity.

Towards understanding paternal extragenic contributions to early amphibian pattern specification: the axolotl ts—1 gene as a model system

Development ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 89 (Supplement) ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
George M. Malacinski ◽  
Dorothy Barone
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Data ◽  
Mutant Gene ◽  
Model System ◽  
Early Embryogenesis ◽  
Ambystoma Mexicanum ◽  
Parental Effects ◽  
Phenotypic Data ◽  
Modes Of Action ◽  
Pattern Specification ◽  
Made In

As a model system for understanding the role sperm extragenic components might play in early embryogenesis the genetics and phenotype of the ts—1 axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) mutant gene are reviewed. That mutant gene displays parental effects. It exhibits both maternal (egg-mediated) as well as paternal (sperm-mediated) phenotypic effects. A variety of possible modes of action of the ts—1 gene are reviewed. Comparisons of various precedents to the ts—1 genetic data are made. In addition, novel models which account for the ts—1 phenotypic data are presented.

DNA Methylation Profiles Suggest Intergenerational Transfer of Maternal Effects

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 540-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare J Venney ◽  
Oliver P Love ◽  
Ellen Jane Drown ◽  
Daniel D Heath
Keyword(s):  
Dna Methylation ◽  
Maternal Effects ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Oncorhynchus Tshawytscha ◽  
Environmental Influence ◽  
Evolutionary Genetics ◽  
Development Stage ◽  
Offspring Fitness ◽  
Cpg Sites ◽  
Nongenetic Inheritance

Abstract The view of maternal effects (nongenetic maternal environmental influence on offspring phenotype) has changed from one of distracting complications in evolutionary genetics to an important evolutionary mechanism for improving offspring fitness. Recent studies have shown that maternal effects act as an adaptive mechanism to prepare offspring for stressful environments. Although research into the magnitude of maternal effects is abundant, the molecular mechanisms of maternal influences on offspring phenotypic variation are not fully understood. Despite recent work identifying DNA methylation as a potential mechanism of nongenetic inheritance, currently proposed links between DNA methylation and parental effects are indirect and primarily involve genomic imprinting. We combined a factorial breeding design and gene-targeted sequencing methods to assess inheritance of methylation during early life stages at 14 genes involved in growth, development, metabolism, stress response, and immune function of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). We found little evidence for additive or nonadditive genetic effects acting on methylation levels during early development; however, we detected significant maternal effects. Consistent with conventional maternal effect data, maternal effects on methylation declined through development and were replaced with nonadditive effects when offspring began exogenous feeding. We mapped methylation at individual CpG sites across the selected candidate genes to test for variation in site-specific methylation profiles and found significant maternal effects at selected CpG sites that also declined with development stage. While intergenerational inheritance of methylated DNA is controversial, we show that CpG-specific methylation may function as an underlying molecular mechanism for maternal effects, with important implications for offspring fitness.

scholarly journals Reproductive dynamics shapes genomotype composition in an allopolyploid complex

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1831) ◽  
pp. 20153009 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Morgado-Santos ◽  
S. Carona ◽  
M. F. Magalhães ◽  
L. Vicente ◽  
M. J. Collares-Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Random Mating ◽  
Fertilization Rate ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Offspring Survival ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Offspring Production ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Hybrid Complexes

Hybrid complexes are composed of organisms with multiple combinations of parental genomes (genomotypes) that interconnect through nets of crosses. Although several such complexes are well established without speciation or extinction, mechanisms shaping their dynamics remain poorly understood. In this study, we quantified the reproductive success of the allopolyploid Iberian fish Squalius alburnoides in experimental free-access and directional crosses involving the most common genomotypes. Specifically, we analysed the paternity of the offspring produced when females had free access to male genomotypes and quantified variations in egg allocation, fertilization rate, and offspring survival among crosses involving each male genomotype. The composition of the offspring produced from free-access crosses varied significantly from that expected from random mating, suggesting that offspring production and viability are not independent of parental male genomotype. Moreover, directional crosses producing the genomotype most commonly found in wild populations appeared to be the most successful, with females laying more eggs, and fertilization rate and offspring survival being the highest. These results suggest that reproductive dynamics plays a relevant role in structuring the genomotype composition of populations and opens a path to future research on the ecology and evolutionary biology of allopolyploids and their multiplicity of possible evolutionary pathways.

Male and Female Cloacal Anatomy of the Fischer’s Clawed Salamander, Onychodactylus fischeri (Caudata, Hynobiidae)

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 275-280
Author(s):  
Vadim V. Yartsev ◽  
Sophiya S. Evseeva ◽  
Irina V. Maslova ◽  
Darya A. Rogashevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Sex Pheromones ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Exocrine Glands ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Reconstruction Methods ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Ventral Glands ◽  
And Storage ◽  
Complex Organ

The cloaca of salamanders is a complex organ with exocrine glands involved in the production of sex pheromones, spermatophores, and storage of sperm. Since the cloaca provides reproductive functions, its signs are important for phylogenetic analysis in the evolutionary biology of tailed amphibians. For clarification of intrafamilial variation of cloacal characteristics in hynobiids, we studied the anatomy of male and female cloacae of Onychodactylus fischeri via histological, histochemical, and 3D-reconstruction methods. Males and females had ciliated cloacal linings and with sexual dimorphism in cloacal conformation and cloacal glands. As in other males and females of hynobiids, females of O. fischeri possessed only ventral glands, secreting neutral glycoproteins. In contrast, males of this species had three types of the cloacal glands. Glands «B» were like ventral glands of females and other hynobiids, while glands «A» and «C» had different histochemical and morphological characteristics. As our results are generally consistent with the data for the related species O. japonicus, these characteristics of the male and female cloacal anatomy may be common to all species of the genus Onychodactylus. The presence of three types of unique cloacal glands in males distinguishes Onychodactylus from all other hynobiids and salamanders.

Distribution of Copper in the Tissues of Males and Females of Mytilus galloprovincialis

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 74-79
Author(s):  
N. S. Chelyadina ◽  
N. V. Pospelova ◽  
Yu. P. Kopytov
Keyword(s):  
Mytilus Galloprovincialis ◽  
Males And Females

scholarly journals Domestication as a model system for the extended evolutionary synthesis

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 20160133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda A. Zeder
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Model System ◽  
Evolutionary Change ◽  
Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Extended Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Model Case ◽  
The Core ◽  
Multiple Regions

One of the challenges in evaluating arguments for extending the conceptual framework of evolutionary biology involves the identification of a tractable model system that allows for an assessment of the core assumptions of the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). The domestication of plants and animals by humans provides one such case study opportunity. Here, I consider domestication as a model system for exploring major tenets of the EES. First I discuss the novel insights that niche construction theory (NCT, one of the pillars of the EES) provides into the domestication processes, particularly as they relate to five key areas: coevolution, evolvability, ecological inheritance, cooperation and the pace of evolutionary change. This discussion is next used to frame testable predictions about initial domestication of plants and animals that contrast with those grounded in standard evolutionary theory, demonstrating how these predictions might be tested in multiple regions where initial domestication took place. I then turn to a broader consideration of how domestication provides a model case study consideration of the different ways in which the core assumptions of the EES strengthen and expand our understanding of evolution, including reciprocal causation, developmental processes as drivers of evolutionary change, inclusive inheritance, and the tempo and rate of evolutionary change.

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