Mothers determine offspring size in response to own juvenile growth conditions.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Taborsky B
PROVIDER: S-EPMC1618922 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Population dynamics studies and harvesting strategies often take advantage of body size measurements. Selected elements of the skeletal system such as mandibles, are often used as retrospective indices to describe body size. The variation in mandibular measurements reflects the variation in the ecological context and hence the variation in animal performance. We investigated the length of the anterior and posterior sections of the mandible in relation to the conditions experienced by juveniles of 8-10 months of age during prenatal and early postnatal life and we evaluated these parameters as ecological indicators of juvenile condition as well as female reproductive condition in a roe deer population living in the southern part of the species range. We analyzed a sample of over 24,000 mandibles of roe deer shot in 22 hunting districts in the Arezzo province (Tuscany, Central Italy) from 2005 to 2015 per age class. Mandible total length in juveniles is equal to 90% of total length in adults. In this stage of life the growing of the mandible's anterior section is already completed while that of the posterior section is still ongoing. Environmental conditions conveyed by forest productivity, agricultural land use, local population density and climate strongly affected the growth of the anterior and posterior sections of the mandibles. Conditions experienced both by pregnant females and offspring played an important role in shaping the length of the anterior section, while the size of the posterior section was found to be related to the conditions experienced by offspring. Temporal changes of the length of the anterior section are a particularly suitable index of growth constraints. Anterior section length in fact differs according to more or less advantageous conditions recorded not only in the year of birth, but also in the previous year. Similarly, the sexual size dimorphism of the anterior section of the roe deer mandible can be used to describe the quality of females above two years of age, as well as habitat value. Hence the anterior section length of the mandible and its sexual size dimorphism are indexes that can provide cues of population performance, because they capture the system's complexities, while remain simple enough to be easily and routinely used in the majority of European countries where roe deer hunting period extends from early autumn to late spring.
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Project description:Causes of secondary sexual dimorphism (SSD) in dioecious plants are very poorly understood, especially in woody plants. SSD is shown mainly in mature plants, but little is known about whether secondary sexual dimorphism can occur in juveniles. It is also assumed that stress conditions intensify differences between the sexes due to the uneven reproductive effort. Therefore, the following research hypotheses were tested: (1) secondary sexual dimorphism will be visible in juveniles; (2) unfavourable soil conditions are the cause of more pronounced differences between the sexes. Rooted shoots of the common yew (Taxus baccata L.) and common juniper (Juniperus communis L.), previously harvested from parental individuals of known sex were used in the study. During two growing seasons vegetation periods and four times a year, comprehensive morphological features of whole plants were measured. Some SSD traits were visible in the analysed juveniles. Contrary to expectations, differences were more pronounced in the fertilized treatment. Both species reacted to fertilization in different ways. Female yew had a clearly higher total plant mass, root mass, and mean root area when fertilized, whereas male juniper had a higher root mass when fertilized. Differences between the sexes independent of the fertilization treatment were seen, which can be interpreted as sexual adaptations to a continued reproduction. Female yews and male junipers made better use of fertile habitats. Our study showed that SSD may be innate, and sexual compensatory mechanisms could generate uneven growth and development of both sexes. Because the SSD pattern was rather different in both species, it was confirmed that SSD is connected with the specific life histories of specific species rather than a universal strategy of dioecious species.
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Project description:Parental care is widespread in Archosaurs (birds, crocodilians, dinosaurs and pterosaurs), and this group provides a useful model for the evolution of parent-offspring interactions. While offspring signalling has been well-studied in birds, the modulation of parental care in crocodilians remains an open question. Here we show that acoustic communication has a key role in the dynamics of crocodilian' mother-offspring relationships. We found embedded information about the emitter's size in juvenile calls of several species, and experimentally demonstrated that Nile crocodile mothers breeding in the wild are less receptive to the calls of larger juveniles. Using synthetized sounds, we further showed that female' reaction depends on call pitch, an important cue bearing size information. Changes in acoustic interactions may thus go with the break of maternal care as well as dispersal of juvenile crocodilians. This process could have characterized other archosaurs displaying rapid early growth such as dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
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Project description:OBJECTIVES:Studies in rodents suggest that metformin treatment during pregnancy may have harmful effects on testicular development in offspring. Our aim was to determine whether metformin treatment of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) affects testicular size in male offspring. METHODS:We compared the testicular size in prepubertal boys born to mothers who participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing metformin with insulin in the treatment of GDM. Twenty-five (42.4% of invited) and 27 (52.9% of invited) boys whose mothers had been treated with metformin or insulin, respectively, participated in the study. Testicular size was measured by a ruler, an orchidometer, and by ultrasonography at the age of 33 to 85 months. RESULTS:The mean age of the boys was 60 months at the time of examination, and did not differ between the metformin and insulin group (p = 0.88). There was no difference in testicular size between the boys in the two groups (p always ? 0.40), and there were no significant differences in height, weight, BMI, BMI z-score, or waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) between the boys in the groups. CONCLUSIONS:Prepubertal testicular size did not differ between offspring born to metformin-treated mothers and those born to insulin-treated mothers.
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Project description:Mechanisms driving selection of body size and growth rate in wild marine vertebrates are poorly understood, thus limiting knowledge of their fitness costs at ecological, physiological and genetic scales. Here, we indirectly tested whether selection for size-related traits of juvenile sharks that inhabit a nursery hosting two dichotomous habitats, protected mangroves (low predation risk) and exposed seagrass beds (high predation risk), is influenced by their foraging behaviour. Juvenile sharks displayed a continuum of foraging strategies between mangrove and seagrass areas, with some individuals preferentially feeding in one habitat over another. Foraging habitat was correlated with growth rate, whereby slower growing, smaller individuals fed predominantly in sheltered mangroves, whereas larger, faster growing animals fed over exposed seagrass. Concomitantly, tracked juveniles undertook variable movement behaviours across both the low and high predation risk habitat. These data provide supporting evidence for the hypothesis that directional selection favouring smaller size and slower growth rate, both heritable traits in this shark population, may be driven by variability in foraging behaviour and predation risk. Such evolutionary pathways may be critical to adaptation within predator-driven marine ecosystems.
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Project description:The present study aimed to determine, in a swine model of leptin resistance, the effects of type and timing of maternal malnutrition on growth patterns, adiposity and metabolic features of the progeny when exposed to an obesogenic diet during their juvenile development and possible concomitant effects of the offspring sex. Thus, four groups were considered. A CONTROL group involved pigs born from sows fed with a diet fulfilling their daily maintenance requirements for pregnancy. The treated groups involved the progeny of females fed with the same diet but fulfilling either 160% or 50% of pregnancy requirements during the entire gestation (OVERFED and UNDERFED, respectively) or 100% of requirements until Day 35 of pregnancy and 50% of such amount from Day 36 onwards (LATE-UNDERFED). OVERFED and UNDERFED offspring were more prone to higher corpulence and fat deposition from early postnatal stages, during breast-feeding; adiposity increased significantly when exposed to obesogenic diets, especially in females. The effects of sex were even more remarkable in LATE-UNDERFED offspring, which had similar corpulence to CONTROL piglets; however, females showed a clear predisposition to obesity. Furthermore, the three groups of pigs with maternal malnutrition showed evidences of metabolic syndrome and, in the case of individuals born from OVERFED sows, even of insulin resistance and the prodrome of type-2 diabetes. These findings support the main role of early nutritional programming in the current rise of obesity and associated diseases in ethnics with leptin resistance.
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Project description:An epistatic genetic architecture can have a significant impact on prediction accuracies of genomic prediction (GP) methods. Machine learning methods predict traits comprised of epistatic genetic architectures more accurately than statistical methods based on additive mixed linear models. The differences between these types of GP methods suggest a diagnostic for revealing genetic architectures underlying traits of interest. In addition to genetic architecture, the performance of GP methods may be influenced by the sample size of the training population, the number of QTL, and the proportion of phenotypic variability due to genotypic variability (heritability). Possible values for these factors and the number of combinations of the factor levels that influence the performance of GP methods can be large. Thus, efficient methods for identifying combinations of factor levels that produce most accurate GPs is needed. Herein, we employ response surface methods (RSMs) to find the experimental conditions that produce the most accurate GPs. We illustrate RSM with an example of simulated doubled haploid populations and identify the combination of factors that maximize the difference between prediction accuracies of best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) and support vector machine (SVM) GP methods. The greatest impact on the response is due to the genetic architecture of the population, heritability of the trait, and the sample size. When epistasis is responsible for all of the genotypic variance and heritability is equal to one and the sample size of the training population is large, the advantage of using the SVM method vs. the BLUP method is greatest. However, except for values close to the maximum, most of the response surface shows little difference between the methods. We also determined that the conditions resulting in the greatest prediction accuracy for BLUP occurred when genetic architecture consists solely of additive effects, and heritability is equal to one.
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Project description:A unique, hyper-arid habitat in southern Israel was polluted by crude oil in 2014. Surveys following the event found that some species of local lizards avoid the oil, while other species were found more frequently in polluted plots. These results raised the question: why do species react differently to oil-polluted soil? We evaluated how soil type, thermal conditions, and food availability interacted to shape habitat preferences of three lizard species. Generally, thermal conditions determined habitat selection and preferences for contaminated or clean soils, while the effects of food availability were weak. The diurnal Acanthodactylus opheodurus avoided artificial heating sources, perhaps to avoid hot soil during warm hours. Both nocturnal Stenodactylus species showed a preference for higher temperature treatments. While crude oil is considered harmful, ectotherms may not recognize it as a danger and may be attracted to it due to its thermal properties, which may create an ecological trap.
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Breastfeeding (BF) may protect against obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus in children exposed to maternal diabetes in utero, but its effects on infant growth among this high-risk group have rarely been evaluated. OBJECTIVES:The objective of this study was to evaluate BF intensity and duration in relation to infant growth from birth through 12 months among offspring of mothers with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). METHODS:Prospective cohort of 464 GDM mother-infant dyads (28% White, 36% Hispanic, 26% Asian, 8% Black, 2% other). Weight and length measured at birth, 6-9 weeks, 6 months and 12 months. Categorized as intensive BF or formula feeding (FF) groups at 6-9 weeks (study baseline), and intensity from birth through 12 months as Group 1: consistent exclusive/mostly FF, Group 2: transition from BF to FF within 3-9 months and Group 3: consistent exclusive/mostly BF. Multivariable mixed linear regression models estimated adjusted mean (95% confidence interval) change in z-scores; weight-for-length (WLZ), weight-for-age and length-for-age. RESULTS:Compared with intensive BF at 6-9 weeks, FF showed greater increases in WLZ-scores from 6 to 9 weeks to 6 months [+0.38 (0.13 to 0.62) vs. +0.02 (-0.15 to 0.19); p = 0.02] and birth to 12 months [+1.11 (0.87 to 1.34) vs. +0.53 (0.37 to 0.69); p < 0.001]. For 12-month intensity and duration, Groups 2 and 3 had smaller WLZ-score increases than Group 1 from 6 to 9 weeks to 6 months [-0.05 (-0.27 to 0.18) and +0.07 (-0.19 to 0.23) vs. +0.40 (0.15 to 0.64); p = 0.01 and 0.07], and birth to 12 months [+0.60 (0.39 to 0.82) and +0.59 (0.33 to 0.85) vs. +0.97 (0.75 to 1.19); p < 0.05]. CONCLUSIONS:Among offspring of mothers with GDM, high intensity BF from birth through 1 year is associated with slower infant ponderal growth and lower weight gain.
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