Transgenerational effects benefit offspring across diverse environments: a meta‐analysis in plants and animals

The adaptive value of transgenerational effects (the ancestor environmental effects on offspring) in changing environments has received much attention in recent years, but the related empirical evidence remains equivocal. Here, we conducted a meta‐analysis summarising 139 experimental studies in pla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2019-11, Vol.22 (11), p.1976-1986
Main Authors: Yin, Junjie, Zhou, Ming, Lin, Zeru, Li, Qingshun Q., Zhang, Yuan‐Ye, Hosken, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Benign
Changing environments
Climate
Developmental stages
Empirical analysis
Environmental changes
Environmental effects
Environmental impact
Fluctuating environment
Invertebrates
Meta-analysis
Offspring
parental effect
Phenotype
Plants
Taxonomy
transgenerational effect
Transgenic plants
Vertebrates
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Summary:The adaptive value of transgenerational effects (the ancestor environmental effects on offspring) in changing environments has received much attention in recent years, but the related empirical evidence remains equivocal. Here, we conducted a meta‐analysis summarising 139 experimental studies in plants and animals with 1170 effect sizes to investigate the generality of transgenerational effects across taxa, traits, and environmental contexts. It was found that transgenerational effects generally enhanced offspring performance in response to both stressful and benign conditions. The strongest effects are in annual plants and invertebrates, whereas vertebrates appear to benefit mostly under benign conditions, and perennial plants show hardly any transgenerational responses at all. These differences among taxonomic/life‐history groups possibly reflect that vertebrates can avoid stressful conditions through their mobility, and longer‐lived plants have alternative strategies. In addition to environmental contexts and taxonomic/life‐history groups, transgenerational effects also varied among traits and developmental stages of ancestors and offspring, but the effects were similarly strong across three generations of offspring. By way of a more comprehensive data set and a different effect size, our results differ from those of a recent meta‐analysis, suggesting that transgenerational effects are widespread, strong and persistent and can substantially impact the responses of plants and animals to changing environments.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.13373