Research Article |
Corresponding author: Andrzej Antoł ( andrzejantol@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Elisabeth Hornung
© 2018 Andrzej Antoł, Marcin Czarnoleski.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Antoł A, Czarnoleski M (2018) Size dependence of offspring production in isopods: a synthesis. In: Hornung E, Taiti S, Szlavecz K (Eds) Isopods in a Changing World. ZooKeys 801: 337-357. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.801.23677
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In isopods, parental care takes the form of offspring brooding in marsupial pouches. Marsupial brooding was an important step towards the origin of terrestrial lifestyles among isopods, but its potential role in shaping isopod life histories remains unknown. It is here considered that marsupial brooding imposes costs and creates a temporary association between the survival of mothers and that of their offspring. Integrating findings from different life history models, we predicted that the effects of marsupial brooding set selective conditions for the continuation of growth after maturation, which leads to indeterminate growth, and the production of larger offspring by larger females. Based on this perspective, a study on the size dependence of offspring production in the woodlouse Porcellio scaber was performed and the generality of the results was tested by reviewing the literature on offspring production in other isopods. In P. scaber and almost all the other studied isopods, clutch size is positively related to female size. Such dependence is a necessary pre-condition for the evolution of indeterminate growth. The body mass of P. scaber differed six-fold between the largest and smallest brooding females, indicating a high potential for post-maturation growth. Our review showed that offspring size is a rarely studied trait in isopods and that it correlates negatively with offspring number but positively with female size in nearly half of the studied species. Our study of P. scaber revealed similar patterns, but the positive effect of female size on offspring size occurred only in smaller broods, and the negative relation between clutch size and offspring size occurred only in larger females. We conclude that the intraspecific patterns of offspring production in isopods agree with theoretical predictions regarding the role of offspring brooding in shaping the adaptive patterns of female investment in growth, reproduction, and the parental care provided to individual offspring.
clutch size, female size, indeterminate growth, life history evolution, offspring brooding, offspring size, parental care, trade-off
Most crustaceans engage in different types of parental care, which, in isopods, takes the form of offspring brooding in marsupia (
The theory of life history evolution predicts that resource availability limits imposed by physiological and ecological circumstances forces organisms to optimise the lifetime allocation of investment among growth, reproduction and other competing demands to ensure the highest expected fitness under given mortality and production conditions (
A range of life history models predict the evolution of a bang-bang resource allocation strategy, which is associated with the complete cessation of growth after maturation and the so-called determinate growth pattern (
In June–July 2014, individuals of P. scaber were collected in an old backyard in Kraków, Poland. In our study, we used females in the 3rd and 4th stages of brood development (classified according to
All statistical analyses were performed with R 3.4.1 software (R Core Team 2017), and the rgl package of R (
To evaluate the generality of our hypotheses (i–iii) and the empirical results for P. scaber, we reviewed the published literature on isopods for intraspecific information on at least one of the following relationships: clutch size with female size, offspring size with female size, and clutch size with offspring size. Relevant publications were identified by an extensive search of keywords in scientific databases, the review of reference lists of available publications and by personal communication with specialists in the field. Whenever we found relevant information regarding one of the three relationships, we classified the relationship as either statistically significant or non-significant; we also identified significant relationships as either positive or negative. If available, correlation coefficient (r) values were also assigned to each relationship. Traits used to study the relationship between female size and either clutch size or mass varied substantially among authors and species; therefore, we additionally recorded information regarding the types of measured traits. For each type of relationship, each species was classified according to the nature of this relationship, integrating all the results on a species reported in the literature. If a relationship for a given species was consistently reported to be significantly positive, significantly negative, or non-significant, the species was regarded as exhibiting a positive (+) or negative (-) relationship or no relationship (NS). Species for which mixed results were reported, showing either non-significant/significantly positive relationships or non-significant/significantly negative relationships were classified as NS/+ or NS/-, respectively. Ultimately, we used this integrated species information to calculate how frequently among the studied isopods a given pattern (+, -, NS, NS/+ and NS/-) of each relationship occurred. In addition, we used a 1-4 scale to evaluate the confidence in the support for each pattern (+, -, NS, NS/+ and NS/-) to predict the directions of the studied relationships (hypotheses i-iii). Consistently positive/negative relationships (+/-) were treated as providing reliable evidence to support or oppose a hypothesis. Non-significant patterns (NS) were regarded as not supporting a hypothesis, but we also considered the possibility that they might represent false negatives due to low statistical power. The level of support given by inconsistent results (NS/+ and NS/-) was dependent on the context. If among the non-significant and significant results, the significant results were consistent with our predictions, we treated the mixed results as weakly supporting our hypothesis. However, if the significant results were in conflict with the predictions, we regarded the mixed results as strongly opposing the hypothesis.
Among 101 brooding females of P. scaber, body mass ranged from 21.682 to 131.236 mg, clutch sizes ranged from 7 to 106 juveniles, and the mean dry body mass of offspring ranged from 0.078 to 0.126 mg between clutches. Larger females produced heavier (r = 0.83, t1,99 = 14.9, p<0.001, Fig.
In Porcellio scaber, the dry mass of clutches (A) and clutch size (B) increased linearly with female body mass, but the mean dry mass of offspring did not depend on female mass in a consistent way (C). Lines represent fitted regressions A y = -0.13+0.08x (r = 0.83, p<0.001) B y = -0.32+0.74x (r = 0.83, p<0.001) C y = 0.1+0.00006x (r = 0.14, p = 0.15).
The results of the multiple regression analysis (Fig.
In Porcellio scaber, the heaviest offspring were released by large females that produced small clutches. The plane represents a multiple regression model fitted to the data; the partial slopes depicted on the edges were calculated by setting the other predictor value to its minimum and maximum values.
Our literature search identified a total of 79 species of isopods that were studied with respect to at least one of the following relationships: clutch size with female size (Fig.
The literature search identified 79 species of isopods that were studied with respect to at least one of the following relationships: clutch size with female size (A), offspring size with female size (B), and clutch size with offspring size (C). Each graph shows how frequently a given nature of each relationship was found among the studied isopod species. The exact number of species for which the relationships A, B, C were evaluated is given by N. For each type of the relationships A, B, C each species was classified according to the nature of this relationship. If a relationship for a given species was consistently reported to be significantly positive, negative, or non-significant, the species was marked by a positive (+) or negative (-) symbol or by NS. Species for which mixed results were reported in the literature, showing either non-significant/significantly positive relationships or non-significant/significantly negative relationships, were marked by NS/+ or NS/-, respectively. Colour intensity indicates values along a 1–4 scale of confidence to the support provided by each relationship pattern (+, -, NS, NS/+ and NS/-) to hypotheses (i–iii). Relationship A: a positive relationship predicted between female body size and clutch mass/clutch size (hypothesis i). Relationship B: a positive correlation predicted between the average offspring mass in a brood and female body mass (hypothesis ii). Relationship C: a negative correlation predicted between the mean mass of offspring and the number of offspring per brood (hypothesis iii).
Growth patterns vary considerably in nature (
Our data on P. scaber show that the dry body mass of offspring differed between broods by as much as 62%. A significant part of this variance was linked to differences in clutch size and female body mass, but the pattern of this dependence was complex. Supporting hypothesis ii, the size of offspring was positively related to female size, but this pattern existed only if we considered small clutches. Focusing on larger clutches, we found no apparent relationship between offspring size and female size. In accord with hypothesis iii, the size and number of offspring were inversely related, but this pattern existed only among larger females. In broods produced by smaller females, the two traits were not correlated. To date, studies of isopods have only occasionally addressed the question of whether offspring size changes with either female size or clutch size. According to our literature search, the relationships between female size and offspring size and between offspring size and clutch size have only been studied in 18 and 7 species, respectively. For nearly half of these species, we found evidence that supports a positive relationship between female size and offspring size (hypothesis ii) and a trade-off between offspring size and clutch size (hypothesis iii). It is suggestive that all studies that failed to find evidence of such a trade-off (Fig.
Examples of life history strategies in which offspring size is a function of parent size are rare in nature, and their evolutionary origins are puzzling (
Based on the integrated findings reported here, we can attempt to form conclusions about the most common patterns in the size dependence of isopod reproduction and the significance of these patterns for understanding the evolution of isopod life histories. In nearly all the studied species, we found a strong size dependence of female reproductive capacity. Such a dependence is important for explaining the evolution of an indeterminate growth strategy in many species of isopods. Data from nearly half of the isopod species revealed a negative relationship between offspring size and offspring number and a positive relationship between mother size and offspring size. Importantly, our case study of P. scaber suggests that the emergence of each pattern is context-dependent: a positive effect of female size on offspring size was observed only in smaller broods, and a negative relationship between clutch size and offspring size was observed only for larger females. We propose that these patterns be viewed as different elements of a single phenomenon: a lifetime strategy of investment in growth, reproduction and the parental care provided to single offspring that is shaped by selective conditions. The key message of this study is that to gain a better understanding of this strategy in isopods, we must consider the effects of marsupial brooding, especially its costs and the linkage between the survival of mothers and that of their offspring. We hope that our synthesis of theoretical ideas and data on isopods will increase the intersection of life history theory and empirical research in isopods and that this work will stimulate further theory development and lead to an improved understanding of the ecology and evolution of isopods.
This project was funded by the Jagiellonian University (grants DS/WBiNoZ/INoŚ/757/2018 and DS/MND/WBiNoZ/INoŚ/1/2017) and the National Science Centre in Poland (grant 2011/02/A/NZ8/00064).
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