The role of maternal effects on offspring performance in familiar and novel environments

Abstract

Maternal effects are an important evolutionary force that may either facilitate adaptation to a new environment or buffer against unfavourable conditions. The degree of variation in traits expressed by siblings from different mothers is frequently sensitive to environmental conditions. This could generate a Maternal-by-Environment interaction (MxE) that could inflate estimates of Genotype-by-Environment effects (GxE). We aimed to test for environment-specific maternal effects (MxE) using a paternal full-sib/half-sib breeding design in the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, where we split and reared offspring from the same mother on two different bean host types - original and novel. Our quantitative genetic analysis indicated that maternal effects were very small on both host types for all the measured life-history traits. There was also little evidence that maternal oviposition preference for a particular host type predicted her offsprings performance on that host. Further, additive genetic variance for most traits was relatively high on both hosts. While there was higher heritability for offspring reared in the novel host, there was no evidence for GxEs, and most cross-host genetic correlations were positive. This suggests that offspring from the same family ranked similarly for performance on both host types. Our results point to a genetic basis of host adaptation in the seed beetle, rather than maternal effects. Even so, we encourage researchers to test for potential MxEs because, due to a lack of testing, it remains unclear how often they arise.