Journal article
Transgenerational effects of parental nutritional status on offspring development time, survival, fecundity, and sensitivity to zinc in Chironomus tepperi midges
Valentina Colombo, Vincent J Pettigrove, Lisa A Golding, Ary A Hoffmann
ECOTOXICOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY | ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE | Published : 2014
Abstract
Environmental stimuli can induce plastic changes in life history traits, and stimuli experienced by parents can be transmitted to the next generation ("transgenerational") through the inheritance of factors unrelated to changes in DNA sequences. Transgenerational effects are common in species living in habitats subjected to recurrent stressful events, such as fluctuating resource availability. In a previous study, the nutritional status of the midge Chironomus tepperi has been reported to influence life history traits of the offspring. In this study we investigated whether they also alter sensitivity of offspring to zinc. Offspring of parents reared under low food conditions had a shorter de..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Kallie Townsend for insight and useful comments on the manuscript. Funding for this research was provided by Melbourne Water Corporation, The Victorian Department of Business and Innovation through support of the Centre for Aquatic Pollution Identification and Management, and the Australian Research Council through their Fellowship scheme.