"Bigger is better?" The contribution of father's phenotype on offspring attributes in the temperate cryptobenthic reef fish ringneck blenny Parablennius pilicornis

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event "Bigger is better?" The contribution of father's phenotype on offspring attributes in the temperate cryptobenthic reef fish ringneck blenny Parablennius pilicornis Goncalo Silva1, Pedro Duarte-Coelho1, Carla Quiles-Pons1, Henrique Folhas1, Diana Rodrigues1 and Emanuel J. Gonçalves1* 1 MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ISPA, Instituto Universitário, Portugal Under the hypothesis "bigger-is-better", it is expected that larger fish produce larger offspring. Larger initial body sized larvae were found to be able to maintain advantage to important life-history events and therefore have higher chances of survival. Here, we characterized the reproductive male population of the ringneck blenny Parablennius pilicornis and their progeny at Professor Luiz Saldanha Marine Park, Portugal, to investigate the paternal phenotypic influence on offspring morphometric traits, in two breeding seasons of 2014. Reproductive males were, on average, smaller and with larger variance in its morphological characteristics (standard length, body height, head height, body area and body perimeter) in the beginning of the reproductive season (season 1) than in the end (season 2), but sexual secondary characters (papillae diameter and papillae perimeter) tended to be larger in season 1 than in season 2. Although larvae morphometrics revealed large variance within each season and between seasons, larvae were significantly larger in season 1. Correlations between fathers’ and offspring morphometric traits suggested high variability between seasons, where standard lengths were significantly and negatively correlated in season 2 but not in season 1. Therefore, our results indicated that larger adults produced on average smaller larvae. Moreover, father's contribution on larvae characteristics was highly variable between seasons, with larvae average standard length variation mostly explained by father's standard length, body area and body height in season 2, while in season 1 this was not significant. These preliminary results suggested that progeny phenotypic traits are highly variable and that mother's influence and environment may play an important role on the determination of larvae phenotype. To best of our knowledge, this is the first study on temperate cryptobenthic fishes that evaluate fathers’ contributions on progeny in the natural environment. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank to M. Rolim for his help in the field and to the BIOMARES project (LIFE06 NAT/P/000192) for the logistic support at the Professor Luiz Saldanha Marine Park. This study had the support of Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), through the strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2013 granted to MARE and through the project REEFFISH (PTDC/MAR-EST/4356/2012). Keywords: Temperate nearshore rocky reefs, Cryptobenthic fish, Ringneck blenny, Parablennius pilicornis, father - offspring phenotype contribution, Morphometrics, "Bigger-is-Better". Conference: IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2016, Peniche, Portugal, 14 Jul - 15 Jul, 2016. Presentation Type: Poster presentation Topic: Biodiversity, Conservation and Coastal Management Citation: Silva G, Duarte-Coelho P, Quiles-Pons C, Folhas H, Rodrigues D and Gonçalves EJ (2016). "Bigger is better?" The contribution of father's phenotype on offspring attributes in the temperate cryptobenthic reef fish ringneck blenny Parablennius pilicornis. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: IMMR | International Meeting on Marine Research 2016. doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2016.04.00085 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 03 May 2016; Published Online: 13 Jul 2016. * Correspondence: Prof. Emanuel J Gonçalves, MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ISPA, Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, 1149-041, Portugal, emanuel@ispa.pt Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Goncalo Silva Pedro Duarte-Coelho Carla Quiles-Pons Henrique Folhas Diana Rodrigues Emanuel J Gonçalves Google Goncalo Silva Pedro Duarte-Coelho Carla Quiles-Pons Henrique Folhas Diana Rodrigues Emanuel J Gonçalves Google Scholar Goncalo Silva Pedro Duarte-Coelho Carla Quiles-Pons Henrique Folhas Diana Rodrigues Emanuel J Gonçalves PubMed Goncalo Silva Pedro Duarte-Coelho Carla Quiles-Pons Henrique Folhas Diana Rodrigues Emanuel J Gonçalves Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.