DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Stress-induced Parental Effects on Offspring Mate Choice: Ultimate Drivers and Proximate Mechanisms using the Threespine Stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

论文研究：压力引起的父母对后代择偶的影响：使用三刺刺鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus）的最终驱动因素和近端机制

• 批准号: 1601531
• 负责人: Robin Tinghitella
• 金额: $ 1.95万
• 依托单位: University of Denver
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-06-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1601531&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Stress; induced; Parental

The influence of parents on their offspring depends on the parents' own experiences. Often, these parental effects prepare offspring for the parental environment. For instance, parents exposed to predators can produce offspring that are better able to survive the same predators. Offspring reproduction may also be influenced by parental experiences, but this remains an untested and important question. Parental effects are one way that organisms can respond quickly to rapid environmental change. Yet, parental effects could be bad for offspring if parent and offspring environments do not match. This project tests whether stress experienced by parents influences the mate choices made by their offspring much later, measures the costs and benefits of these effects in a changing environment, and identifies the underlying genomic mechanisms. This project will also lead to the publication of a new, active-learning case study based on this research, and use it to bring modern evolutionary research to middle school classrooms.The proposed work capitalizes on an emerging model system, threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus), in which both parents make substantial, distinct contributions to offspring development and females have quantifiable preferences for male traits. This proposal will reveal the relative importance of maternal, paternal, and parental experience on offspring reproductive phenotypes (Aim 1), whether transgenerational plasticity is adaptive or maladaptive when parental and offspring environments do or do not match (Aim 2), and if epigenetic states underlie changes in offspring mate choice behavior (Aim 3). No parents, mothers, fathers, or both parents will be exposed to predation and the mating decisions of their offspring tested under conditions in which parent and offspring environments do or do not match. Preliminary analyses show that paternal predator-exposure tends to shift daughters' mate preferences, while maternal predator-exposure alters daughters' interest in mating. If parental effects modify mate choice, they may facilitate rapid responses to environmental change, but whether these effects are adaptive depends on agreement between parent and offspring environments. Finally, parental effects on mate choice may be underlain by genome-wide variation in epigenetic states, specifically DNA methylation. Aim 3 uses new techniques to compare genome-wide methylation patterns of offspring from families in which no parents, mothers, fathers, or both parents were exposed to predation. This proposal will establish the role of parental effects on reproductive phenotypes for individual fitness and population dynamics in anthropogenically altered environments.

父母对子女的影响取决于父母自身的经历。通常，这些亲代效应会为后代做好适应亲代环境的准备。例如，暴露于掠食者的父母可以产生能够更好地在同样的掠食者中生存的后代。后代的繁殖也可能受到父母经历的影响，但这仍然是一个未经检验的重要问题。亲代效应是生物体对快速环境变化做出快速反应的一种方式。然而，如果父母和后代的环境不匹配，父母的影响可能会对后代产生不利影响。该项目测试父母经历的压力是否会影响后代的择偶选择，衡量这些影响在不断变化的环境中的成本和收益，并确定潜在的基因组机制。该项目还将出版基于该研究的新的主动学习案例研究，并利用它将现代进化研究带入中学课堂。拟议的工作利用了一种新兴的模型系统，三刺棘鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus） ），其中父母双方都对后代的发展做出了实质性的、独特的贡献，并且女性对男性特征有可量化的偏好。该提案将揭示母亲、父亲和父母经历对后代生殖表型的相对重要性（目标 1），当父母和后代环境匹配或不匹配时，跨代可塑性是适应性还是适应不良（目标 2），以及表观遗传状态是否是后代择偶行为变化的基础（目标 3）。父母、母亲、父亲或父母双方都不会遭受捕食，并且在父母和后代环境匹配或不匹配的条件下测试其后代的交配决定。初步分析表明，父亲接触掠食者往往会改变女儿的择偶偏好，而母亲接触掠食者会改变女儿的交配兴趣。如果亲代效应改变了配偶选择，它们可能会促进对环境变化的快速反应，但这些效应是否具有适应性取决于亲代和后代环境之间的一致性。最后，父母对配偶选择的影响可能是由于表观遗传状态的全基因组变异，特别是 DNA 甲基化。目标 3 使用新技术来比较父母、母亲、父亲或父母双方均未遭受捕食的家庭的后代的全基因组甲基化模式。该提案将确定亲本对人为改变的环境中个体适应性和种群动态的生殖表型的影响的作用。