Sex-specific effects of the in ovo environment on early-life phenotypes in eiders

Maternal effects affect offspring phenotype and fitness. However, the roles of offspring sex-specific sensitivity to maternal glucocorticoids and sex-biased maternal investment remain unclear. It is also uncertain whether telomere length (a marker associated with lifespan) depends on early growth in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oecologia
Main Authors: Öst, Markus, Noreikiene, Kristina, Angelier, Frederic, Jaatinen, Kim
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Early environment
Feather corticosterone
Prenatal growth
Telomere length
Somateria mollissima
Online Access:https://research.abo.fi/en/publications/8f4d1cc3-14f4-4529-85ac-6dddc240a536
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-019-04569-9
https://research.abo.fi/ws/files/27045699/_st_et_al_2020_Oecologia.pdf
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe202201147360
Description
Summary:Maternal effects affect offspring phenotype and fitness. However, the roles of offspring sex-specific sensitivity to maternal glucocorticoids and sex-biased maternal investment remain unclear. It is also uncertain whether telomere length (a marker associated with lifespan) depends on early growth in a sex-specific manner. We assessed whether maternal traits including corticosterone (CORT; the main avian glucocorticoid) and in ovo growth rate are sex-specifically related to offspring CORT exposure, relative telomere length (RTL) and body condition in eiders (Somateria mollissima). We measured feather CORT (fCORT), RTL and body condition of newly hatched ducklings, and growth rate in ovo was expressed as tarsus length at hatching per incubation duration. Maternal traits included baseline plasma CORT, RTL, body condition and breeding experience. We found that fCORT was negatively associated with growth rate in daughters, while it showed a positive association in sons. Lower offspring fCORT was associated with higher maternal baseline plasma CORT, and fCORT was higher in larger clutches and in those hatching later. The RTL of daughters was negatively associated with maternal RTL, whereas that of males was nearly independent of maternal RTL. Higher fCORT in ovo was associated with longer RTL at hatching in both sexes. Duckling body condition was mainly explained by egg weight, and sons had a slightly lower body condition. Our correlational results suggest that maternal effects may have heterogeneous and even diametrically opposed effects between the sexes during early development. Our findings also challenge the view that prenatal CORT exposure is invariably associated with shorter telomeres.

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