DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Stress-induced Parental Effects on Offspring Mate Choice: Ultimate Drivers and Proximate Mechanisms using the Threespine Stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

父母对后代的影响取决于他们自己的经历。通常，这些亲代效应为后代适应亲代环境做好了准备。例如，暴露于捕食者的父母可以产生能够更好地在同一捕食者中生存的后代。后代的繁殖也可能受到父母经历的影响，但这仍然是一个未经检验的重要问题。亲代效应是生物体对快速环境变化做出快速反应的一种方式。然而，如果父母和后代的环境不匹配，父母的影响可能对后代有害。该项目测试了父母所经历的压力是否会影响后代日后的择偶选择，测量了这些影响在不断变化的环境中的成本和收益，并确定了潜在的基因组机制。该项目还将在本研究的基础上发表一个新的、主动学习的案例研究，并利用它将现代进化研究带入中学课堂。这项研究利用了一个新兴的模型系统——三刺棘鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus），在这个模型系统中，父母双方都对后代的发育做出了实质性的、独特的贡献，而雌性对雄性特征的偏好是可以量化的。这一建议将揭示母系、父系和亲代经历对后代生殖表型的相对重要性（目标1），当亲代和后代环境匹配或不匹配时，跨代可塑性是适应的还是不适应的（目标2），以及表观遗传状态是否构成后代择偶行为变化的基础（目标3）。没有父母，母亲，父亲，或父母双方将暴露在捕食和交配决定的后代测试条件下，父母和后代的环境是否匹配。初步分析表明，父亲的捕食者暴露倾向于改变女儿的择偶偏好，而母亲的捕食者暴露则改变女儿的交配兴趣。如果亲代影响改变配偶选择，它们可能促进对环境变化的快速反应，但这些影响是否具有适应性取决于亲代和后代环境之间的一致。最后，亲代对配偶选择的影响可能是由于表观遗传状态的全基因组变异，特别是DNA甲基化。目的3使用新技术来比较来自没有父母、母亲、父亲或父母双方都暴露于捕食的家庭的后代的全基因组甲基化模式。这一建议将确定亲代效应在人为改变环境中个体适应性和种群动态的生殖表型中的作用。

The influence of parents on their offspring depends on the parents' own experiences. Often, these parental effects prepare offspring for the parental environment. For instance, parents exposed to predators can produce offspring that are better able to survive the same predators. Offspring reproduction may also be influenced by parental experiences, but this remains an untested and important question. Parental effects are one way that organisms can respond quickly to rapid environmental change. Yet, parental effects could be bad for offspring if parent and offspring environments do not match. This project tests whether stress experienced by parents influences the mate choices made by their offspring much later, measures the costs and benefits of these effects in a changing environment, and identifies the underlying genomic mechanisms. This project will also lead to the publication of a new, active-learning case study based on this research, and use it to bring modern evolutionary research to middle school classrooms.The proposed work capitalizes on an emerging model system, threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus), in which both parents make substantial, distinct contributions to offspring development and females have quantifiable preferences for male traits. This proposal will reveal the relative importance of maternal, paternal, and parental experience on offspring reproductive phenotypes (Aim 1), whether transgenerational plasticity is adaptive or maladaptive when parental and offspring environments do or do not match (Aim 2), and if epigenetic states underlie changes in offspring mate choice behavior (Aim 3). No parents, mothers, fathers, or both parents will be exposed to predation and the mating decisions of their offspring tested under conditions in which parent and offspring environments do or do not match. Preliminary analyses show that paternal predator-exposure tends to shift daughters' mate preferences, while maternal predator-exposure alters daughters' interest in mating. If parental effects modify mate choice, they may facilitate rapid responses to environmental change, but whether these effects are adaptive depends on agreement between parent and offspring environments. Finally, parental effects on mate choice may be underlain by genome-wide variation in epigenetic states, specifically DNA methylation. Aim 3 uses new techniques to compare genome-wide methylation patterns of offspring from families in which no parents, mothers, fathers, or both parents were exposed to predation. This proposal will establish the role of parental effects on reproductive phenotypes for individual fitness and population dynamics in anthropogenically altered environments.