Abstract:
:The hormone fluctuations that an animal experiences during ovulation can have lifelong effects on developing offspring. These hormones may act as an adaptive mechanism, allowing offspring to be 'pre-programmed' to survive in an unstable environment. Here, we used a transgenerational approach to examine the effects of elevated maternal corticosterone (CORT) on the future reproductive success of female offspring. We show that female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) exposed to embryonic CORT produce daughters that have equal reproductive success (clutch sizes, fertility, hatching success) compared with the daughters produced from untreated mothers, but their offspring had accelerated post-hatching growth rates and were significantly heavier by nutritional independence. Although there was no significant effect on primary offspring sex ratio, females from CORT-treated mothers produced significantly female-biased clutches by nutritional independence. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first record of a transgenerational sex ratio bias in response to elevated maternal CORT in any avian species.
journal_name
Biol Lettjournal_title
Biology lettersauthors
Khan N,Peters RA,Richardson E,Robert KAdoi
10.1098/rsbl.2016.0627subject
Has Abstractpub_date
2016-11-01 00:00:00issue
11eissn
1744-9561issn
1744-957Xpii
rsbl.2016.0627journal_volume
12pub_type
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