Data for: Parental environmental effects are common and strong, but unpredictable, in Arabidopsis thaliana

The phenotypes of plants can be influenced by the environmental conditions
experienced by their parents. However, there is still much uncertainty
about how common and how predictable such parental environmental effects
really are. We carried out a comprehensive experimental test for parental
effects, subjecting plants of multiple Arabidopsis thaliana genotypes to
24 different biotic or abiotic stresses, or combinations thereof, and
comparing their offspring phenotypes in a common environment. The majority
of environmental stresses caused significant parental effects, with ‑35%
to +38% changes in offspring fitness. The expression of parental effects
was strongly genotype-dependent, and multiple environmental stresses often
acted non-additively when combined. The direction and magnitude of
parental effects were unrelated to the direct effects on the parents: some
environmental stresses did not affect the parents but caused substantial
effects on offspring, while for others the situation was reversed. Our
study demonstrates that parental environmental effects are common and
often strong in A. thaliana, but they are genotype-dependent, act
non-additively, and are difficult to predict. We should thus be cautious
with generalizing from simple studies with single plant genotypes and/or
only few individual environmental stresses. A thorough and general
understanding of parental effects requires large multi-factorial
experiments.