the effects of larval nutrition on reproductive performance in a food-limited adult environment幼虫营养对繁殖性能的影响在一个成人食品有限的环境.pdf

The Effects of Larval Nutrition on Reproductive Performance in a Food-Limited Adult Environment 1 2 Caitlin Dmitriew *, Locke Rowe ¨ ¨ 1 Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Sciences, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 2 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Abstract It is often assumed that larval food stress reduces lifetime fitness regardless of the conditions subsequently faced by adults. However, according to the environment-matching hypothesis, a plastic developmental response to poor nutrition results in an adult phenotype that is better adapted to restricted food conditions than one having developed in high food conditions. Such a strategy might evolve when current conditions are a reliable predictor of future conditions. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the effects of larval food conditions (low, improving and high food) on reproductive fitness in both low and high food adults environments. Contrary to this hypothesis, we found no evidence that food restriction in larval ladybird beetles produced adults that were better suited to continuing food stress. In fact, reproductive rate was invariably lower in females that were reared at low food, regardless of whether adults were well fed or food stressed. Juveniles that encountered improving conditions during the larval stage compensated for delayed growth by accelerating subsequent growth, and thus showed no evidence of a reduced reproductive rate. However, these same individuals lost more mass during the period of starvation in adults, which indicates that accelerated growth results in an increased risk of starvation during subsequent periods of food stress. Citation: Dmitriew C,