Meeting Abstract
Maternal effects, such as stress, body condition, and hormone levels have been shown to affect female reproductive strategies and offspring phenotype. The overall quality of maternal diet has been shown to affect reproductive investment and timing of clutch production in some lizards. However, few studies have explored the effects of a specific macronutrient on reproduction. In this study, we examined the effects of early-season maternal lipid consumption on reproductive investment and embryonic development in prairie lizards. We captured female prairie lizards from an Arkansas population soon after overwinter emergence. Females were fed ad libitum either a high-lipid diet of 3 waxworms (14.8% lipid) or a low-lipid diet of 5 crickets (2.5% lipid). We monitored the number of prey items consumed until females were vitellogenic, upon which they were paired with a mate. We also monitored female body compositions from capture through oviposition with weekly quantitative magnetic resonance scans. After oviposition, we recorded clutch size, egg mass, and maternal lipid loss, as a proxy for lipid investment. All eggs were incubated under common conditions. Upon hatching, we recorded incubation duration and hatchling mass and snout-vent length. This study suggests that early-season, high-lipid diets influenced some reproductive investment traits, but not those pertaining to hatchling phenotypes. These data are generally consistent with theories that first clutches are produced from capital reserves.
