Fitness Costs of Maternal Ornaments and Prenatal Corticosterone Manifest as Reduced Offspring Survival and Sexual Ornament Expression.

ABSTRACT: Colorful traits (i.e., ornaments) that signal quality have well-established relationships with individual condition and physiology. Furthermore, ornaments expressed in females may have indirect fitness effects in offspring via the prenatal physiology associated with, and social consequences of, these signaling traits. Here we examine the influence of prenatal maternal physiology and phenotype on condition-dependent signals of their offspring in adulthood. Specifically, we explore how prenatal maternal testosterone, corticosterone, and ornament color and size correlate with female and male offspring survival to adulthood and ornament quality in the lizard Sceloporus undulatus. Offspring of females with more saturated badges and high prenatal corticosterone were less likely to

SUBMITTER: Assis BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8928773 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature