Data from: Does egg carotenoid improve larval quality in Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus)?

Females in mutually ornamented species are often less conspicuously
ornamented than their male conspecifics. It has been hypothesized that
offspring quality may decrease if females invest more resources into
ornaments at the expense of resources in eggs. An experiment was carried
out to test whether natural variation in carotenoid in the eggs from a
wild population of Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) was associated with
survival and growth of their offspring until hatching. Wild Arctic charr
were caught at a spawning ground during the spawning period. Eggs from two
different females, one female with yellowish carotenoid-rich eggs and one
with paler eggs, were fertilized by sperm from the same male. This was
repeated until gametes were collected from 42 females and 21 males, giving
a total of 21 groups. After fertilization, the zygotes from each of the
two females were reared in four replicated groups. These 168 groups were
reared separately until hatching when the surviving larvae were counted
and their body length measured. For the two response variables survival
and body length at hatching, no effect was demonstrated of any of the
predictors (i) amount of carotenoid in the unfertilized eggs, (ii) the
mothers’ body condition or (iii) ornament intensity of their red
carotenoid-based abdominal ornament. Thus, this study gives no support for
the hypothesis that females investing less carotenoid into their eggs
suffer from decreased offspring quality until hatching. This lack of
association between female ornament intensity and their fitness is not as
expected if female ornaments evolved due to direct sexual selection from
males on the more ornamented females (“direct selection hypothesis”).