Am J Bot. 1997 Nov;84(11):1617.
Many biologists studying environmentally induced parental effects have indirectly suggested that the parental environment alters seed mass by altering the amount of endosperm or embryo tissue in the seed. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the effects of parental temperature on total seed mass, seed coat mass, and embryo/endosperm mass in offspring of Plantago lanceolata. Parental temperature significantly affected total seed and coat mass but not endosperm/embryo mass. Thus, larger seeds do not contain more resources in the embryo or endosperm than do small seeds. Rather they have more coat mass, which probably strongly influences germination. These results suggest caution when making assumptions about the pathways by which environmentally induced parental effects are transmitted in plant species. We also observed that controlled crosses differed significantly in their response to parental temperature, which provides evidence for genetic variation in environmentally induced parental effects, i.e., intergenerational phenotypic plasticity, in natural populations of P. lanceolata.
许多研究环境诱导的亲代效应的生物学家已经间接表明，亲代环境通过改变种子中的胚乳或胚胎组织的数量来改变种子质量。我们通过测量 Plantago lanceolata 亲代温度对后代总种子质量、种皮质量和胚胎/胚乳质量的影响来检验这一假设。亲代温度显著影响总种子和种皮质量，但不影响胚乳/胚胎质量。因此，大种子在胚胎或胚乳中并不比小种子含有更多的资源。相反，它们具有更多的种皮质量，这可能强烈影响种子的萌发。这些结果表明，在植物物种中，环境诱导的亲代效应的传递途径做出假设时需要谨慎。我们还观察到，受控杂交在对亲代温度的反应上存在显著差异，这为 P. lanceolata 自然种群中环境诱导的亲代效应（即代际表型可塑性）的遗传变异提供了证据。
