Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
J Anim Ecol. 2021 Jun;90(6):1550-1559. doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.13475. Epub 2021 Mar 29.
As postulated by life-history theory, not all life-history traits can be maximized simultaneously. In ectothermic animals, climate warming is predicted to increase growth rates, but at a cost to overall life span. Maternal effects are expected to mediate this life-history trade-off, but such effects have not yet been explicitly elucidated. To understand maternal effects on the life-history responses to climate warming in lizard offspring, we conducted a manipulative field experiment on a desert-dwelling viviparous lacertid lizard Eremias multiocellata, using open-top chambers in a factorial design (maternal warm climate and maternal present climate treatments × offspring warm climate and offspring present climate treatments). We found that the maternal warm climate treatment had little impact on the physiological and life-history traits of adult females (i.e. metabolic rate, reproductive output, growth and survival). However, the offspring warm climate treatment significantly affected offspring growth, and both maternal and offspring warm climate treatments interacted to affect offspring survival. Offspring from the warm climate treatment grew faster than those from the present climate treatment. However, the offspring warm climate treatment significantly decreased the survival rate of offspring from maternal present climate treatment, but not for those from the maternal warm climate treatment. Our study demonstrates that maternal effects mediate the trade-off between growth and survival of offspring lizards, allowing them to grow fast without a concurrent cost of low survival rate (short life span). These findings stress the importance of adaptive maternal effects in buffering the impact of climate warming on organisms, which may help us to accurately predict the vulnerability of populations and species to future warming climates.
根据生活史理论，并非所有的生活史特征都可以同时最大化。在变温动物中，气候变暖预计会增加生长速度，但代价是整体寿命。母体效应预计会调节这种生活史权衡，但这种效应尚未得到明确阐明。为了了解母体效应对蜥蜴后代对气候变暖的生活史反应的影响，我们在一种沙漠生的胎生蜥蜴（Eremias multiocellata）中进行了一项操纵性野外实验，使用开顶室进行了因子设计（母体温暖气候和母体当前气候处理×后代温暖气候和后代当前气候处理）。我们发现，母体温暖气候处理对成年雌性的生理和生活史特征（即代谢率、生殖输出、生长和存活）几乎没有影响。然而，后代温暖气候处理显著影响了后代的生长，母体和后代的温暖气候处理都相互作用影响了后代的存活。来自温暖气候处理的后代比来自当前气候处理的后代生长得更快。然而，后代温暖气候处理显著降低了来自母体当前气候处理的后代的存活率，但对来自母体温暖气候处理的后代没有影响。我们的研究表明，母体效应调节了蜥蜴后代生长和存活之间的权衡，使它们能够在不牺牲低存活率（短寿命）的情况下快速生长。这些发现强调了适应性母体效应在缓冲气候变暖对生物体的影响方面的重要性，这可能有助于我们更准确地预测种群和物种对未来变暖气候的脆弱性。
