Sex- and trait-specific silver-spoon effects of developmental environments, on ageing

AbstractThe environment organisms experience during development can have effects which carry over into their adult lives. These developmental environments may not only affect adult traits at a given point in time, but also how these traits change with age. Generally, stressful developmental environments can lead to sub-optimal adult fitness traits and a faster deterioration of these traits with age. But whether these environments affect how performance traits change with age or whether they affect males and females differently lacks evidence. Here, we test the sex-specific effects of crowding during development on life history traits such as lifespan, fecundity, age-dependent survival, and reproductive senescence, as well as flight performance traits, in the seed beetle-Callosobruchus maculatus. We show that although developmental crowding has no effect on flight performance of either sex, on male adult lifespan, or on female age-dependant survival, it is detrimental to female lifespan ...摘要：生物体在发育过程中所处的环境，其影响可延续至成年阶段。这类发育环境不仅会影响特定时间点的成年性状，还会影响这些性状随年龄的变化模式。通常而言，压力性发育环境会导致成年个体的适合度性状表现不佳，并加速这些性状随年龄的衰退进程。但目前仍缺乏相关证据，以明确这类环境是否会影响性能性状随年龄的变化，亦或是对雌雄个体产生差异化影响。本研究以绿豆象（Callosobruchus maculatus）为实验对象，探究发育阶段的拥挤环境对其生活史性状（包括寿命、繁殖力、年龄依赖性存活率以及生殖衰老）以及飞行性能性状的性别特异性影响。研究结果显示，尽管发育拥挤对雌雄个体的飞行性能、雄性成虫寿命以及雌性的年龄依赖性存活率均无显著影响，但该环境会对雌性寿命产生不利影响……