Gender-specific ageing and non-Mendelian inheritance of oxidative damage in marine copepods

Abstract

Ageing in the marine pelagic copepod Acartia tonsa results in decreased feeding and production rates associated with an increase in the accumulation of protein oxidative damage, as predicted by the oxidative stress hypothesis. In laboratory experiments, we estimated sex-specific ageing effects on feeding and oxidative damage and on egg production rates of adult females. We also determined maternal effects on offspring by measuring egg hatching success and oxidative damage of nauplii from mothers of different ages. Males manifested more oxidative damage with age than females, providing an alternative explanation for the shorter life span in males. Older females produced fewer offspring, and nauplii with higher protein oxidative damage, than younger females. This study forms an empirical basis to link ageing, life span, sex differences and maternal fitness in animals that also reflects natural copepod population dynamics. Individual ageing processes and the resulting age structure in the population modulate mortality risk, parental effects on offspring performance, reproductive investment, and pelagic energy fluxes.