Data from: Maternal food availability affects offspring performance and survival in a viviparous lizard

1. Whether maternal effects are adaptive or not has been a long standing topic of discussion in evolutionary ecology. The effects of maternal diet on offspring has been addressed by several studies on diverse organisms, but results are typically conflicting or inconclusive. 2. In this study, we conducted food manipulation experiments with a factorial design (high and low maternal food conditions × high and low offspring food conditions) in a viviparous lacertid lizard (Eremias multiocellata) to test four competing hypotheses on the evolutionary significance of maternal effects: environmental matching hypothesis, low-food compensation hypothesis, low-food pathology hypothesis, and no-compensation hypothesis. 3. We found that offspring under the maternal low-food treatment had higher growth and survival rates than those under the maternal high-food treatment, supporting the low-food compensation hypothesis rather than the environmental matching hypothesis, which has been widely accepted as an explanation for the adaptive significance of maternal effects. 4. Our study highlights the importance of testing multiple competing hypotheses that involve both adaptive and non-adaptive explanations when studying the evolutionary significance of phenotypic plasticity.

1. 母体效应（maternal effects）是否具有适应性，一直是进化生态学领域长期争论的议题。已有多项针对不同生物类群的研究探讨了母体饮食对子代的影响，但相关研究结果往往存在冲突或缺乏明确结论。
2. 本研究以胎生蜥蜴科（Lacertidae）的密点麻蜥（Eremias multiocellata）为实验材料，采用析因设计（factorial design，母体高、低食物条件 × 子代高、低食物条件）开展食物操控实验，以此检验关于母体效应进化意义的4个竞争性假说：环境匹配假说（environmental matching hypothesis）、低食物补偿假说（low-food compensation hypothesis）、低食物病理假说（low-food pathology hypothesis）以及无补偿假说（no-compensation hypothesis）。
3. 研究结果显示，经母体低食物处理的子代，其生长速率与存活率均显著高于母体高食物处理组的子代，该结果支持低食物补偿假说，而非此前被广泛用于阐释母体效应适应性意义的环境匹配假说。
4. 本研究强调，在探究表型可塑性（phenotypic plasticity）的进化意义时，同时检验涵盖适应性与非适应性解释的多个竞争性假说，具有重要的学术价值。