Reproductive Biology, Family Conflict, and Size of Offspring in Marine Invertebrates

Abstract

All organisms face two fundamental trade-offs in the allocation of energetic resources: one between many small versus a few large offspring, and the second between present and future reproduction. Nowhere are these trade-offs more apparent than in the vast range of variation in the sizes of eggs and offspring exhibited among species of marine invertebrates. It has become increasingly clear that, in many taxa of marine organisms, there is also substantial intraspecific variation in the size of eggs and hatchings. This variation has largely been attributed to adaptive maternal effects. In theory, however, the inevitable conflicts of interest that arise in families of sexually reproducing organisms over the optimal distribution of parental resources among siblings could also account for much of this variation in egg and offspring size. Here, we explore the potential impacts of family conflict on offspring traits by comparing the life histories of two exemplar species of marine organisms, the polychaete Boccardia proboscidea and the gastropod Solenosteira macrospira, emphasizing how differences in modes of fertilization and parental care might influence the phenotype and, consequently, the fitness of offspring.