The Adaptive Significance of Maternal Effects

Overview

Journal Trends Ecol Evol

Specialties Biology
Environmental Health

Date 2011 Jan 18

PMID 21238360

Citations 491

Authors

T A Mousseau

C W Fox

Affiliations

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Abstract

Recently, the adaptive significance of maternal effects has been increasingly recognized. No longer are maternal effects relegated as simple `troublesome sources of environmental resemblance' that confound our ability to estimate accurately the genetic basis of traits of interest. Rather, it has become evident that many maternal effects have been shaped by the action of natural selection to act as a mechanism for adaptive phenotypic response to environmental heterogeneity. Consequently, maternal experience is translated into variation in offspring fitness.

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