Meeting Abstract
38.2 Wednesday, Jan. 5 Intrinsic costs underlying parental investment: Insight from a capital breeder STAHLSCHMIDT, Z.R.*; LOURDAIS, O.; LORIOUX, S.; BUTLER, M.W.; DENARDO, D.F.; Arizona State Univ., Tempe; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Chize (France); CNRS, Chize (France); Arizona State Univ., Tempe; Arizona State Univ., Tempe zs@asu.edu
Life history theory posits a tradeoff between the two primary components of Darwinian fitness, wherein investment in reproduction comes at a cost to survival. In addition to extrinsic costs (e.g., increased predation risk), intrinsic reproductive costs related (or likely related) to fitness (e.g., increased energy expenditure) may exist. These costs can depend on the extent of parental investment. For example, intrinsic costs may be higher when parental investment extends beyond oviposition (e.g., as opposed to yolk deposition only) or if clutch size is relatively high. To elucidate the intrinsic costs of parental investment, we measured multiple traits of morphology (i.e., body condition and musculature) and physiology (i.e., innate immunity, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant capacity, and leukocyte profiles [heterophils : lymphocytes] of blood) in capitally breeding female Children’s pythons (Antaresia childreni) during non-reproduction and two stages of parental investment (i.e., gravidity and egg brooding). For morphological traits, costs of parental investment increased as reproduction progressed (e.g., body condition: non-reproduction > gravidity > egg brooding). Although reproduction was detrimental to every physiological trait, there were no differences between reproductive stages (e.g., lipid peroxidation: non-reproduction < gravid ≈ egg brooding). Parental investment was non-depreciable (i.e., fecundity-independent) because clutch characteristics did not relate to most dependent variables. Our results demonstrate that the underlying costs of parental investment in a capital breeder are both numerous and sizable (e.g., reproduction detrimentally affected morphological and physiological traits by averages of 27 – 146%).
