Pathogen-induced maternal effects result in enhanced immune responsiveness across generations.

ABSTRACT: Parental investment theory postulates that adults can accurately perceive cues from their surroundings, anticipate the needs of future offspring based on those cues, and selectively allocate nongenetic resources to their progeny. Such context-dependent parental contributions can result in phenotypically variable offspring. Consistent with these predictions, we show that bacterially exposed Manduca sexta mothers oviposited significantly more variable embryos (as measured by mass, volume, hatching time, and hatching success) relative to naïve and control mothers. By using an in vivo "clearance of infection" assay, we also show that challenged larvae born to heat-killed- or live-Serratia-injected mothers, supported lower microbial loads and cleared the infection faster than prog

SUBMITTER: Rosengaus RB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5415515 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature