Sex dependent sexual reproduction strategies in a cyclic parthenogen—A case study from intermittent urban pond

Abstract

The fitness of animals inhabiting highly unpredictable intermittent ponds depends on the effectiveness of the production of their resting stages. Daphnia living in such an environment produce sexual eggs as well as the males needed to fertilize them. We hypothesize that the strategy of permanent male presence should coexist with the synchronization of the production of males with that of sexual eggs. To test this hypothesis, we collected plankton samples from a model urban pond, two times a week, throughout the growing season. We analyzed in detail a number of environmental factors and the population dynamics of two Daphnia populations. The percentage of ephippial females and males periodically reached c.a. 50 % of the population. Depending on the moment of the growing season, this proportion was primarily influenced by population crowding, the richness of invertebrate predators in the habitat, extreme high temperatures and the occurrence of the autumnal photoperiod. Our results confirm the hypothesis that Daphnia produce simultaneously long-living males and males synchronized with receptive females. Additionally, we have shown that the number of resting eggs deposited by temporally-isolated populations varied significantly; thus the fitness of a particular genotype depends on the season and on the particular timing of its activation.