Meeting Abstract

S2-1.7  Friday, Jan. 4  The role of learning in mediating transgenerational responses to nutrition SNELL-ROOD, EC; University of Minnesota emilies@umn.edu

Understanding how organisms cope with variation in the quantity and quality of nutrition is relevant to predicting their responses to changing nutritional environments and may have implications for human health. In many species, parents gain both direct and indirect information about the future nutritional environment of their offspring. How does such information impact parental investment and offspring survival? This talk discusses how different life cycles may determine whether parental experience can result in adaptive transgenerational responses to nutritional variation. I present data from butterflies suggesting that adult learning experiences may prepare offspring for novel nutritional environments through effects on energy allocation to eggs. Finally, I will discuss developmental mechanisms, such as gene expression stochasticity and DNA methylation, which may underlie such transgenerational responses to nutrition.