Abstract
Colorful traits (i.e., ornaments) that signal quality have well-established relationships with individual condition and physiology. Furthermore, ornaments expressed in females may have indirect fitness effects in offspring via the prenatal physiology associated with, and social consequences of, these signaling traits. Here we examine the influence of prenatal maternal physiology and phenotype on condition-dependent signals of their offspring in adulthood. Specifically, we explore how prenatal maternal testosterone, corticosterone, and ornament color and size correlate with female and male offspring survival to adulthood and ornament quality in the lizard Sceloporus undulatus. Offspring of females with more saturated badges and high prenatal corticosterone were less likely to survive to maturity. Badge saturation and area were negatively correlated between mothers and their male offspring, and uncorrelated to those in female offspring. Maternal prenatal corticosterone was correlated negatively with badge saturation of male offspring in adulthood. Our results indicate that maternal ornamentation and prenatal concentrations of a stress-relevant hormone can lead to compounding fitness costs by reducing offspring survival to maturity and impairing expression of a signal of quality in surviving males. This mechanism may occur in concert with social costs of ornamentation in mothers. Intergenerational effects of female ornamentation and prenatal stress may be interdependent drivers of balancing selection and intralocus sexual conflict over signaling traits.
Highlights
Offspring were more likely to survive to maturity when their mothers had less saturated badges and lower levels of baseline CORT during pregnancy (Table 1, Figure 3)
Studies that assess the contribution of maternal physiology and maternal inheritance to the expression of condition-dependent signals in offspring, and to their fitness, are largely lacking
Our results show that naturally higher baseline levels of the stress-relevant hormone CORT along with more saturated badges in gravid female lizards were associated with a reduced probability that offspring would survive to sexual maturity
Summary
Many animal species employ visually conspicuous traits in communication and signaling [1, 2]. The expression and strength of such signals can be mediated by hormones, such as sex steroids [3] and glucocorticoids involved in stress responses [4]. Individual phenotype and fitness can be influenced by maternal hormones during the prenatal phase [5]. Maternal Effects on Offspring Fitness physiological effects on progeny are widespread and diverse, ranging from phenotypic expression [6] to hatching success and survival [7]. The prevalence and adaptive potential of sexual ornaments has received significant attention [8–12], but the maternal influence – either via genetic inheritance or prenatal effects – on adaptive expression of these traits in offspring remains unclear. Intergenerational associations between ornaments in offspring and maternal hormones and/ or maternal inheritance might have important fitness consequences and could represent alternative ways in which female ornamentation can be evolutionarily relevant
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