Data from: Maternal corticosterone exposure has transgenerational effects on grand-offspring

The hormone fluctuations that an animal experiences during ovulation can have lifelong effects on developing offspring. These hormones may act as an adaptive mechanism, allowing offspring to be ‘pre-programmed’ to survive in an unstable environment. Here, we used a transgenerational approach to examine the effects of elevated maternal corticosterone (CORT) on the future reproductive success of female offspring. We show that female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) exposed to embryonic CORT produce daughters that have equal reproductive success (clutch sizes, fertility, hatching success) compared with the daughters produced from untreated mothers, but their offspring had accelerated post-hatching growth rates and were significantly heavier by nutritional independence. Although there was no significant effect on primary offspring sex ratio, females from CORT-treated mothers produced significantly female-biased clutches by nutritional independence. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first record of a transgenerational sex ratio bias in response to elevated maternal CORT in any avian species.

动物在排卵期间经历的激素波动，可对发育中的子代产生终身影响。此类激素可作为一种适应性机制，使子代得以‘预先编程’，以在不稳定环境中存活。本研究采用跨代研究方法，探究母体升高的皮质酮（corticosterone, CORT）水平对子代雌性未来繁殖成功率的影响。研究发现，胚胎期暴露于皮质酮的雌性斑胸草雀（Taeniopygia guttata）所产的子代雌性，其繁殖成功率（包括窝卵数、受精率与孵化成功率）与未处理母本所产的子代雌性无显著差异，但其孙代的孵化后生长速率更快，且在达到营养独立期时体重显著更高。尽管对初级子代性比无显著影响，但经皮质酮处理的母本所产的雌性个体，在达到营养独立期时所产的窝卵数显著偏向雌性。据我们所知，本研究首次记录了在任何鸟类物种中，母体皮质酮水平升高引发的跨代性比偏移现象。