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Maternal effects impact decision-making in a viviparous lizard.

ABSTRACT: Stressful conditions experienced during early development can have deleterious effects on offspring morphology, physiology and behaviour. However, few studies have examined how developmental stress influences an individual's cognitive phenotype. Using a viviparous lizard, we show that the availability of food resources to a mother during gestation influences a key component of her offspring's cognitive phenotype: their decision-making. Offspring from females who experienced low resource availability during gestation did better in an anti-predatory task that relied on spatial associations to guide their decisions, whereas offspring from females who experienced high resource availability during gestation did better in a foraging task that relied on colour associations to inform their decisions. This shows that the prenatal environment can influence decision-making in animals, a cognitive trait with functional implications later in life.

SUBMITTER: Munch KL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5938558 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Maternal effects impact decision-making in a viviparous lizard.

Munch Kirke L KL Noble Daniel W A DWA Botterill-James Thomas T Koolhof Iain S IS Halliwell Ben B Wapstra Erik E While Geoffrey M GM

Biology letters 20180401 4

Stressful conditions experienced during early development can have deleterious effects on offspring morphology, physiology and behaviour. However, few studies have examined how developmental stress influences an individual's cognitive phenotype. Using a viviparous lizard, we show that the availability of food resources to a mother during gestation influences a key component of her offspring's cognitive phenotype: their decision-making. Offspring from females who experienced low resource availabi ...[more]

PMID: 29643218

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