Transgenerational plasticity of critical swimming speed to warming in a coral reef fish, <i>Acanthochromis polyacanthus</i>

This dataset and R script is associated with the paper; Maternal and Paternal Transgenerational Plasticity to Warming Increases Swimming Speed in a Marine Fish<b>Abstract</b> Transgenerational plasticity occurs when the parental environment alters the phenotypes of future generations in both adaptive and non-adaptive ways. When adaptive, it can potentially buffer organisms against the effects of rapid climate change. Yet the relative non-genetic contributions of mothers and fathers to offspring phenotypes are poorly understood. Here, we tested the influence of maternal, paternal, and biparental developmental exposure to elevated temperature (+1.5°C), consistent with projected marine heatwaves and average ocean warming, on offspring critical swimming speed in a coral reef damselfish (<i>Acanthochromis</i> <i>polyacanthus</i>). Strikingly, offspring of mothers or fathers independently exposed to warming swam faster than juveniles where both parents developed in control conditions, or where both parents developed in warm conditions. We propose this increase in maximum sustained swimming speed may be a maladaptive transgenerational response to thermally mismatched parents. By contrast, offspring from thermally matched parents maintain a swimming speed that might be optimal for the energy budget of the whole animal. These results highlight the importance of disentangling the relative maternal and paternal non-genetic contributions since they would have otherwise been masked. They also draw attention to the complex and potentially non-adaptive ways transgenerational plasticity may be induced in response to rapid climate change.Please see methods for more details.