Individual variation in plasticity dulls transgenerational responses to stress

1. Much research has shown that environmental stress can induce adaptive and maladaptive phenotypic changes in organisms that persist for multiple generations. Such transgenerational phenotypic plasticity shrouds our understanding of the long-term consequences of ongoing anthropogenic pressures. 2. Here, we evaluated within- and transgenerational phenotypic responses to food stress in the freshwater crustacean, Daphnia. We reared 45 clones of Daphnia pulicaria each on high-quality Scenedesmus and low-quality (but also non-toxic) cyanobacteria (generation 1). Offspring produced by generation 1 adults were then reared on Scenedesmus (generation 2) and life history traits were measured across both generations. 3. The results show that Daphnia in generation 1 exhibited reduced fitness (i.e. delayed maturation, lower reproductive output, increased clutch interval) when reared in the presence of cyanobacteria as opposed to high-quality food. However, maternal stress had no clear influence on ...