Meeting Abstract

101.4  Wednesday, Jan. 7  Maternal diet and juvenile quality in the sea star Leptasterias aequalis GEHMAN, AM; Western Washington University alyssamina@gmail.com

Nutritional provisioning that passes from a mother to her offspring can produce maternal carryover effects. Manipulating the amount of food available to a maternal organism is one way to manipulate maternal investment ability, and thereby test maternal carryover. I collected brooding adult Leptasterias aequalis from three beaches with varying prey communities in the northern Puget Sound. When broods were released, I measured size and survival of the juveniles under starvation conditions. I then assigned the maternal sea stars to different feeding treatments and controlled their diets for a full year until they spawned again. I measured size and growth of juveniles released from these second broods. Juvenile L. aequalis from the initial broods showed surprising resistance to starvation, with 80% survival after 6 months, and some juveniles living a full year with no food. Juvenile survival over time varied significantly among the beaches. Juvenile size also varied significantly among mothers from the three study beaches, even when differences in female size by beach were accounted for. Maternal feeding treatments had no effect on the size of juveniles in the second broods. The patterns in juvenile size mirrored those I saw in the first year, regardless of feeding treatment. The beach that a female came from had a stronger effect on juvenile quality than a year of diet treatment. When looking at multiple generations of carryover in L. aequalis, it seems that genetics, and possibly full female feeding history, have a greater effect on juvenile quality than a single year of maternal feeding.