The genetic basis of family conflict resolution in mice
- 1 January 2003
- journal article
- letter
- Published by Springer Nature in Nature
- Vol. 421 (6922), 533-535
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01239
Abstract
Asymmetries in the costs and benefits of parental investment for mothers, fathers and offspring result in family conflict over the production and provisioning of young1,2,3. In species where females provide most resources before and after birth, the resolution of this conflict may be influenced by genes expressed in mothers and by maternally and paternally inherited genes expressed in offspring4,5. Here we disentangle these effects by means of reciprocal mating and cross-fostering of litters between two strains of mice that differ with respect to the typical resolution of family conflict. We find that differences in litter size between these two strains are determined by paternal genotype, whereas differences in provisioning are under maternal control, showing that there is antagonistic coadaptation of maternal and paternal effects on distinct life-history traits. Maternal provisioning is also influenced by the type of foster offspring. Contradictory to theoretical expectations, however, we find no evidence for a negative correlation across strains between maternal provisioning and offspring demand. Instead, we show that there is positive coadaptation such that offspring obtain more resources from foster mothers of the same strain as their natural mother, irrespective of their father's strain.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- Parentally biased favouritism: why should parents specialize in caring for different offspring?Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2002
- Intrafamilial conflict and parental investment: a synthesisPhilosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2002
- Parent–offspring conflict and the genetics of offspring solicitation and parental responseAnimal Behaviour, 2001
- Genomic Imprinting, Maternal Care, and Brain EvolutionHormones and Behavior, 2001
- Parent-Offspring Coadaptation and the Dual Genetic Control of Maternal CareScience, 2001
- Regulation of Maternal Behavior and Offspring Growth by Paternally Expressed Peg3Science, 1999
- Parental antagonism, relatedness asymmetries, and genomic imprintingProceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 1997
- Evolutionary theory of parent–offspring conflictNature, 1995
- Models of parent-offspring conflict. II. PromiscuityAnimal Behaviour, 1978
- Parent-Offspring ConflictAmerican Zoologist, 1974