Schleicherová Dáša, Prearo Marino, Santovito Alfredo
Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Turin, Via Accademia Albertina 13, 10124 Torino, Italy.
IZS PLV, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Via Bologna 148, 10154 Torino, Italy.
Biology (Basel). 2023 Jun 14;12(6):859. doi: 10.3390/biology12060859.
Hermaphrodites are characterized by plastic sex allocation, by which they adjust their allocation of reproductive resources according to mating opportunities. However, since the plasticity of sex allocation is influenced by environmental conditions, it may also be affected by species-specific life-history traits. In this study, we explored the trade-off between nutritional stress due to food deficiency and the investment of resources in female allocation and somatic growth in the simultaneously hermaphroditic polychaete worm, . To achieve this, we exposed adult individuals to three food supply levels: (1) ad libitum-100% food supply, (2) intense food deficiency-25% food resources, and (3) extreme food deficiency-0% food resources. Our findings show a progressive decrease in female allocation in the numbers of cocoons and eggs and in body growth rate of individuals as the level of nutritional stress increased.
雌雄同体生物的特征是具有可塑性的性别分配，即它们会根据交配机会来调整生殖资源的分配。然而，由于性别分配的可塑性受环境条件影响，它也可能受到物种特定生活史特征的影响。在本研究中，我们探讨了同时具有雌雄同体特征的多毛纲蠕虫因食物短缺导致的营养压力与在雌性分配和体细胞生长方面资源投入之间的权衡。为实现这一目的，我们将成年个体暴露于三种食物供应水平下：（1）自由采食——100%食物供应，（2）严重食物短缺——25%食物资源，以及（3）极端食物短缺——0%食物资源。我们的研究结果表明，随着营养压力水平的增加，茧和卵数量方面的雌性分配以及个体的身体生长速率逐渐下降。
