Do high females produce high quality sons? Maternal effects on fitness and fitness-related traits of male offspring in a social mammal

自然选择作用于可遗传的性状，并影响个体的适应性。因此，研究与健康相关的特征、影响这些特征的因素及其遗传性，对于我们理解进化过程至关重要。个体的表型性状是由个体的基因型，它在发展过程中经历的环境影响，或两者的组合形成的。由于在哺乳动物中，发育过程中的环境主要由母亲提供，雌性哺乳动物很可能对其后代的身体和社会发育产生强烈影响。然而，在自然选择压力下生活在自然环境中的哺乳动物中，母亲对雄性后代适应性和适应性相关性状的影响从未被研究过。在这里，我建议调查的表型质量的女性和健身和健身相关性状的男性后代在自由放养的斑点鬣狗之间的关系。这项研究将揭示是否社会地位和经验，两个最重要的决定因素，女性质量的斑点鬣狗和许多其他社会哺乳动物，影响健身的后代的分散性别，女性质量如何转移到后代的健身和健身相关的性状是否受母体影响是可遗传的。比较母体效应对雄性鬣狗、雌性鬣狗和其他物种的雌性适应性和适应性相关性状的遗传力的影响，可以进一步揭示母体效应是否取决于性别内和性别间的分布模式和优势关系等特征。

Natural selection operates on traits that are heritable and influence the fitness of individuals. The study of fitness-related traits, of factors that influence these traits and of their heritability is thus fundamental to our understanding of evolutionary processes. Individual phenotypic traits are shaped by the individual’s genotype, environmental effects it experiences during development, or a combination of both. Because in mammals, the environment during development is provided mainly by the mother, female mammals are likely to have a strong impact on the physical and social development of their offspring. Maternal effects on fitness and fitness-related traits of male offspring however have never been investigated in mammals living under natural selection pressures in their natural environment. Here I propose to investigate the relationship between the phenotypic quality of females and the fitness and fitness-related traits of their male offspring in free-ranging spotted hyenas. The study will reveal whether social status and experience, the two most important determinants of female quality in spotted hyenas and many other social mammals, influence the fitness of offspring of the dispersing sex, how female quality transfers into offspring fitness and whether fitness-related traits influenced by maternal effects are heritable. A comparison of maternal effects on fitness and heritability of fitness-related traits of male hyenas, female hyenas and females of other species may further reveal whether maternal effects depend on characteristics such as the dispersal pattern and dominance relationships within and between the sexes.