Indirect Genetic Effects of Parental Care Behavior

父母照顾行为的间接遗传效应。作者声明：Charles W.许多研究表明，父母的照顾会影响后代性状的表达。从后代的角度来看，父母的照顾是一个环境因素，就像食物或空气温度一样。然而，对父母来说，父母的照顾和其他任何特质一样，都是由父母的基因和父母所处的环境决定的。通过它们对后代环境的影响，亲本基因和亲本环境都可以影响后代的性状，如生长和发育时间。亲本基因和环境对后代性状表达的影响分别称为间接遗传效应和间接环境效应。间接遗传效应是一个特别有趣的现象，因为它们可以影响性状对自然选择的反应速度和方向。具体目标是：1）确定在具有亲本照料的昆虫物种中由于间接遗传效应引起的子代性状的变异量，2）调查间接遗传效应的影响是否取决于在许多哺乳动物中观察到的性状表达的发育阶段，（3）研究间接遗传效应对有无父母照顾的个体的相对影响，这一研究结果将大大增加我们对有父母照顾的动物性状进化的理解。通过比较有双亲照顾的昆虫与哺乳动物和鸟类的关系，我们可以了解包括双亲效应在内的进化模型的一般性。这些模型主要是根据对家养哺乳动物的观察而开发的。在有父母照顾和没有父母照顾的情况下饲养的动物中，父母效应的比较将提供关于父母照顾如何影响性状进化的宝贵信息。

Indirect Genetic Effects of Parental Care BehaviorClaudia M. Rauter and Charles W. FoxNumerous studies have shown that parental care can affect expression of traits in offspring. From the point of view of offspring, parental care is an environmental factor like food or air temperature. For the parents, however, parental care is a trait like any other trait; it is determined by parental genes and the environment to which the parent is exposed. Through their effects on the offspring environment, both parental genes and the parental environment can affect offspring traits such as growth and developmental time. These effects of parental genes and environment on trait expression in offspring are called indirect genetic effects and indirect environmental effects, respectively. The indirect genetic effects are of special interest, because they can influence rate and direction of response of traits to natural selection.This study will investigate how parental care affects trait evolution. The specific objectives are to 1) determine the amount of variation in progeny traits that is due to indirect genetic effects in an insect species with parental care, 2) investigate whether the influence of indirect genetic effects depends on the developmental stage in which the trait is expressed as has been observed in many mammals, and 3) examine the relative influence of indirect genetic effects in individuals reared with and without parental care.The results of this research will significantly increase our understanding of trait evolution in animals with parental care. The comparison between an insect with parental care with mammals and birds will give us insights about the generality of the evolutionary models including parental effects. These models have been developed primarily based on observations in domesticated mammals. The comparison of parental effects in animals reared with and without parental care will provide invaluable information about how parental care affects trait evolution.