Meeting Abstract

P1.3  Tuesday, Jan. 4  Maternal Diet Affects Offspring Quality via its Effect on Egg Investment in the Lizard Anolis sagrei WARNER, D.A.*; LOVERN, M.B.; Iowa State University; Oklahoma State University dwarner@iastate.edu

Maternal effects occur when the phenotype or environment of the mother influences phenotypes of the offspring. Because these transgenerational factors can impact evolutionary processes, identifying the fitness consequences of maternal effects has been a primary challenge in evolutionary ecology. We conducted a controlled laboratory experiment with the brown anole lizard (Anolis sagrei) to quantify the effect of habitat structure (i.e., perch availability) and diet quantity on egg investment (yolk quantity and steroid hormones) and offspring phenotypes. Offspring were raised for three months to evaluate the persistence of maternal effects on growth and survival. Perch availability strongly influenced perch competition between cage mates, but had no subsequent effects on maternal reproduction or offspring phenotypes. Although diet quantity did not affect overall reproductive output or yolk steroid allocation, females given less food produced smaller eggs than those given greater quantities. In turn, females on a low-quantity diet produced smaller offspring with slower growth rates and lower survival than those produced by females on the high-quantity diet. Yolk steroid allocation shifted with successive eggs, whereby early eggs contained lower levels of testosterone than late eggs; yolk corticosterone did not shift temporally. Despite no effect of diet on yolk steroid allocation, yolk testosterone positively affected offspring survival. Overall, this study illustrates the importance of the maternal environment and yolk steroid allocation in generating variation in offspring phenotypes and survival.