Beyond Environmental Matching: Maternal Effects Depend on Offspring Environmental Complexity and Fitness Traits
- 1Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
Abstract
The consequences of maternal effects for offspring fitness can depend on the environmental conditions offspring encounter and the fitness traits considered. We used a transgenerational experiment in Daphnia magna to test how maternal exposure to warming and elevated salinity influenced offspring survival, reproduction and body size across matching, mismatching and multiple-stressor environments. Maternal exposure to salinity enhanced offspring survival under matching salinity, and benefits extended to mismatching environments. In contrast, maternal exposure to warming provided no survival benefit under matching warming and reduced survival in mismatching environments, while accelerating reproduction across contexts. Multiple-stressor conditions revealed pronounced maternal effects, while contrasting responses across survival, reproduction and body size showed that benefits to one fitness trait did not extend to others. Our findings demonstrate that environmental matching alone is insufficient to predict maternal effects, whose consequences depend on offspring environmental complexity and the fitness trait considered.
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BibTeX
@misc{carrierbelleau2026beyond,
title = {{Beyond Environmental Matching: Maternal Effects Depend on Offspring Environmental Complexity and Fitness Traits}},
author = {C. Carrier-Belleau and J. A. Orr and F. Vermandele and A. Bryan and M. Collins and M. Glenn and A. Kyryk and B. Spickett and P. Luijckx and J. J. Piggott},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.09.757982},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.09.757982v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Beyond Environmental Matching: Maternal Effects Depend on Offspring Environmental Complexity and Fitness Traits
AU - C. Carrier-Belleau
AU - J. A. Orr
AU - F. Vermandele
AU - A. Bryan
AU - M. Collins
AU - M. Glenn
AU - A. Kyryk
AU - B. Spickett
AU - P. Luijckx
AU - J. J. Piggott
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.09.757982
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.09.757982v1
AB - The consequences of maternal effects for offspring fitness can depend on the environmental conditions offspring encounter and the fitness traits considered. We used a transgenerational experiment in Daphnia magna to test how maternal exposure to warming and elevated salinity influenced offspring survival, reproduction and body size across matching, mismatching and multiple-stressor environments. Maternal exposure to salinity enhanced offspring survival under matching salinity, and benefits extended to mismatching environments. In contrast, maternal exposure to warming provided no survival benefit under matching warming and reduced survival in mismatching environments, while accelerating reproduction across contexts. Multiple-stressor conditions revealed pronounced maternal effects, while contrasting responses across survival, reproduction and body size showed that benefits to one fitness trait did not extend to others. Our findings demonstrate that environmental matching alone is insufficient to predict maternal effects, whose consequences depend on offspring environmental complexity and the fitness trait considered.
ER -