Data from: Adaptive maternal behavioral plasticity and developmental programming mitigate the transgenerational effects of temperature in dung beetles

Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to cope with rapid environmental change. Yet exactly when during ontogeny plastic responses are elicited, whether plastic responses produced in one generation influence phenotypic variation and fitness in subsequent generations, and the role of plasticity in shaping population divergences, remains overall poorly understood. Here, we use the dung beetle <i>Onthophagus taurus</i> to assess plastic responses to temperature at several life stages bridging three generations and compare these responses across three recently diverged populations. We find that beetles reared at hotter temperatures grow less than those reared at mild temperatures, and that this attenuated growth has transgenerational consequences by reducing offspring size and survival in subsequent generations. However, we also find evidence that plasticity may mitigate these consequences in two ways: (i) mothers modify the temperature of their offspring’s developmental environment via behavioral plasticity and (ii) in one population, offspring exhibit accelerated growth when exposed to hot temperatures during very early development (“developmental programming”). Lastly, our study reveals that offspring responses to temperature diverged among populations in fewer than 100 generations, possibly in response to range-specific changes in climatic or social conditions.

表型可塑性（phenotypic plasticity）可赋予生物体应对环境快速变化的能力。然而，有关可塑性反应究竟在个体发育的哪个阶段被触发、某一代产生的可塑性反应是否会影响后续世代的表型变异与适合度，以及可塑性在塑造种群分化过程中发挥的作用，目前整体仍有待深入解析。本研究以公牛嗡蜣螂（Onthophagus taurus）为实验材料，对其跨越三个世代、覆盖多个生活阶段的温度响应可塑性进行评估，并对比了三个近期分化种群间的此类反应差异。研究结果显示，相较于在温和温度环境下饲养的个体，高温环境中饲养的蜣螂生长更为迟缓；而这种受抑制的生长会产生跨代效应，即降低后续子代的体型大小与存活率。不过，本研究同时发现可塑性可通过两种途径缓解此类负面影响：其一，母体可通过行为可塑性改变子代发育环境的温度条件；其二，在其中一个种群中，若子代在发育极早期暴露于高温环境，则会表现出加速生长的现象（即“发育编程（developmental programming）”）。此外，本研究还揭示，子代对温度的可塑性反应在不足100代的演化时间内便已在种群间出现分化，这可能是为适应不同分布区的气候或社会环境变化而产生的适应性结果。