Data from: High-protein paternal diet confers an advantage to sons in sperm competition

Parental environment can widely influence offspring phenotype, but paternal effects in the absence of parental care remain poorly understood. We asked if protein content in the larval diet of fathers affected paternity success and gene expression in their sons. We found that males reared on high-protein diet had sons that fared better during sperm competition, suggesting that postcopulatory sexual selection is subject to transgenerational paternal effects. Moreover, immune response genes were downregulated in sons of low-protein fathers, while genes involved in metabolic and reproductive processes were upregulated.亲本环境可广泛影响子代表型，但无亲代抚育情境下的父本效应仍未得到充分阐释。本研究旨在探讨父本幼虫日粮的蛋白质含量是否会影响其父本成功率以及子代雄性的基因表达水平。研究发现，以高蛋白日粮饲养的雄性个体，其雄性子代在精子竞争中表现更优，这表明交配后性选择会受到跨代父本效应的影响。此外，由低蛋白日粮饲养父本所产生的雄性子代体内，免疫应答相关基因呈现下调表达，而参与代谢与生殖过程的基因则呈现上调表达。