Meeting Abstract
When faced with a stressor, animals mount a physiological stress response involving secretion of stress relevant hormones, including corticosterone (CORT). This response is fundamental to animals’ ability to respond to predictable and unpredictable stressors and during pregnancy, can influence the phenotype, performance, and fitness of resulting offspring. The Environmental Match Hypothesis proposes that maternal stress will adaptively prepare offspring to cope with the environment experienced by the mother. There are few studies that have shown the effects of this maternal stress in offspring from wild caught females. We tested two hypotheses: 1) that maternal stress will alter fitness-relevant behavior of offspring expressed at one week and one month of age; 2) that acute stress will have stronger effects on the behavior of offspring from stressed mothers. We manipulated stress of gravid female Eastern Fence Lizards (Sceloporus undulatus) by dosing them daily with ecologically-relevant concentrations of CORT, to mimic those resulting from attack by fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). We measured sprint speed, righting ability, and response to tactile cues of ant attack of the resulting offspring close to hatching and at one month of age, and following application of CORT. We will present results on effects of maternal CORT-treatment on these ecologically-important performance measures. These results will reveal fitness-relevant consequences of maternal stress for offspring behavior, and will lead to a better understanding of how maternal stress may promote offspring survival in a stressful environment.
