Journal
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
Volume 31, Issue 4, Pages 876-884Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.12801
Keywords
fluctuating temperature; maternal effect; oestrogen; season; sex ratio; temperature-dependent sex determination
Categories
Funding
- NIH [IR15ES023995-01]
- NSF graduate research fellowship
- Beta Lambda Chapter of Phi Sigma
- ILMA-Lakes Graduate Scholarship
Ask authors/readers for more resources
1. Sex-specific maternal effects can be adaptive sources of phenotypic plasticity. Reptiles with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) are a powerful system to investigate such maternal effects because offspring phenotype, including sex, can be sensitive to maternal influences such as oestrogens and incubation temperatures. 2. In red-eared slider turtles (Trachemys scripta), concentrations of maternally derived oestrogens and incubation temperatures increase across the nesting season; we wanted to determine if sex ratios shift in a seasonally concordant manner, creating the potential for sex-specific maternal effects, and to define the sex ratio reaction norms under fluctuating temperatures across the nesting season. 3. Eggs from early and late season clutches were incubated under a range of thermally fluctuating temperatures, maternally derived oestradiol concentrations were quantified via radioimmunoassay, and hatchling sex was identified. We found that late-season eggs had higher maternal oestrogen concentrations and were more likely to produce female hatchlings. The sex ratio reaction norm curves systematically varied with season, such that with even a slight increase in temperature (05 degrees C), late-season eggs produced up to 49% more females than early-season eggs. 4. We found a seasonal shift in sex ratios which creates the potential for sex-specific phenotypic matches across the nesting season driven by maternal effects. We also describe, for the first time, systematic variation in the sex ratio reaction norm curve within a single population in a species with TSD.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available