Personal and transgenerational cues are nonadditive at the phenotypic and molecular level.

ABSTRACT: Organisms can gain information about their environment from their ancestors, their parents or their own personal experience. 'Cue integration' models often start with the simplifying assumption that information from different sources is additive. Here, we test key assumptions and predictions of cue integration theory at both the phenotypic and molecular level in threespined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). We show that regardless of whether cues about predation risk were provided by their father or acquired through personal experience, sticklebacks produced the same set of predator-adapted phenotypes. Moreover, there were nonadditive effects of personal and paternal experience: animals that received cues from both sources resembled animals that received cues from a single source. A s

SUBMITTER: Stein LR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6062471 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature