Androgen-dependent maternal effects on offspring fitness in zebra finches |
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Authors: | Joanna Rutkowska Tomasz Wilk Mariusz Cichoń |
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Institution: | (1) Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Kraków, Poland;(2) Present address: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA |
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Abstract: | There is accumulating evidence that maternal hormones may play a role in offspring sex adjustment, but little is known about
the costs of such hormone-mediated mechanisms. Recent studies have reported sex-specific effects of hormones on offspring
viability. Specifically, we previously found that elevating the plasma androgen level in mothers results in a male-biased
offspring primary sex ratio, but it affects the viability of sons negatively and daughters positively in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata; Rutkowska and Cichoń, Anim Behav, 71:1283–1288, 2006). In this study, we studied further fitness consequences of exposure
to elevated yolk androgen levels in zebra finches. We measured growth rate and cellular immune response of nestlings that
hatched from eggs laid by females injected with testosterone during egg laying and nestlings of unaffected control females.
We found that sons of testosterone-treated females grew slower in comparison to sons of control females. The significant interaction
between experimental group and offspring sex indicates that sons of testosterone-treated mothers suffered impaired immune
responsiveness while daughters seemed to benefit from elevated androgen level in terms of enhanced immune responsiveness.
We found no effects of androgens on offspring performance at adulthood—neither fecundity of females nor attractiveness of
males was affected. We conclude that the benefits of biasing sex ratio towards males by increasing androgen level in the yolk
may be limited due to negative effects on male offspring performance early in life. |
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Keywords: | Growth rate Cellular immune response Fecundity Attractiveness Sex-specific effects Testosterone Taeniopygia guttata |
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