Koenigbauer S T, Höök T O
Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Purdue University West Lafayette Indiana USA.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant West Lafayette Indiana USA.
Ecol Evol. 2023 Oct 3;13(10):e10555. doi: 10.1002/ece3.10555. eCollection 2023 Oct.
Contemporary fisheries research and management have highlighted the need to protect size and age structures of fish populations. Many studies particularly emphasize a disproportionate contribution of populations' largest, oldest female fish to population-level recruitment through maternal effects: non-genetic effects of females on performance of their offspring including through energetic provisioning of eggs. Our study synthesized the effects of increasing female size on offspring performance using a meta-analysis approach. In a stepwise fashion, we conducted three separate meta-analyses to estimate the broad-scale patterns of maternal effects in fish. We synthesized relationships between female size and egg size, egg size and offspring size, and egg size and offspring survival. We tested maternal effects across numerous taxonomic orders and system types including freshwater, diadromous, and saltwater species. We also compared the effects of increasing egg size on offspring performance at different experimental durations. These three meta-analyses all supported the paradigm that larger females render individual benefits to offspring performance. However, females have finite gonadal energy and space for egg provisioning and must trade off between egg size and fecundity. For the largest females to contribute disproportionately to population recruitment (relative to their gonadal investment), they must utilize their gonadal investment more efficiently than their smaller conspecifics. Using example studies in published literature, we demonstrated how established maternal effects on egg provisioning do not necessarily support greater reproductive efficiency in larger females. Therefore, while larger females do produce larger eggs, which promote offspring growth and survival, we concluded these benefits may not always outweigh relative fecundity costs of larger eggs.
当代渔业研究与管理强调了保护鱼类种群大小和年龄结构的必要性。许多研究特别强调种群中最大、最老的雌性鱼类通过母体效应（雌性对其后代表现的非遗传效应，包括通过卵子的能量供应）对种群水平补充的不成比例贡献。我们的研究采用荟萃分析方法综合了雌性体型增大对后代表现的影响。我们以逐步的方式进行了三项独立的荟萃分析，以估计鱼类母体效应的广泛模式。我们综合了雌性体型与卵大小、卵大小与后代大小以及卵大小与后代存活率之间的关系。我们在包括淡水、洄游和海水物种在内的众多分类目和系统类型中测试了母体效应。我们还比较了在不同实验持续时间下卵大小增加对后代表现的影响。这三项荟萃分析均支持较大雌性为后代表现带来个体益处的范式。然而，雌性的性腺能量和用于卵子供应的空间有限，必须在卵大小和繁殖力之间进行权衡。为了使最大的雌性对种群补充做出不成比例的贡献（相对于它们的性腺投资），它们必须比体型较小的同种个体更有效地利用其性腺投资。通过已发表文献中的实例研究，我们证明了既定的母体对卵子供应的影响不一定支持较大雌性具有更高的繁殖效率。因此，虽然较大的雌性确实会产生更大的卵，这有利于后代的生长和存活，但我们得出结论，这些益处可能并不总是超过较大卵的相对繁殖力成本。
