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Causes and Consequences of Inclusive Inheritance

6-8 November 2019
MPI for Evolutionary Biology
Europe/Berlin timezone

The Organizers

Contribution List

32 / 32
1. Welcome
Miriam Liedvogel, Britta Meyer, Melanie Heckwolf, Sandra Bouwhuis
06/11/2019, 13:50
2. Keynote: Transgenerational age effects in a long-lived bird
Sandra Bouwhuis
06/11/2019, 14:00

Birds, in comparison to mammals, are relatively long lived for their size and were once thought to largely escape senescence. As longitudinal studies have accumulated, it has, however, become clear that many avian traits show signs of late-life deterioration. In addition, there is increasing evidence for transgenerational effects of parental age. Using individual-based data from a large colony...
4. Transgenerational effects of early developmental stress on morphology and fitness-related traits in captive zebra finches
Yifan Pei
06/11/2019, 14:30

Using >2000 captive zebra finches that we have detailed information on early developmental stress experienced by these birds as well as their parents and grandparents, we quantify direct as well as trans-generational effects of early stress on multiple morphological and fitness-related traits. We meta-summarize the effects across multiple stressors and dependent traits in order to generate...
5. Paternal epigenetic effects: Do fathers transmit their experiences to their sons?
Alexandra Weyrich
06/11/2019, 14:45

Epigenetic changes function as flexible mechanisms increasing adaptability within a generation and transmitting the environmental information to subsequent generations in vertebrates. In times of global warming and changing vegetation, we aimed to study the epigenetic response of a wild mammal species, the wild guinea pig, to an increase in temperature (of 10°C more than ambient) as well as to...
6. Transgenerational and direct effects of the social environment on body mass and reproduction in a match/mismatch experiment in Japanese quail ( Coturnix japonica )
Esther Langen
06/11/2019, 15:00

The social environment can affect the phenotype of breeding females and can have transgenerational effects on the phenotypes of their future offspring. Using Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), we studied maternal (P0) effects of the social environment on female offspring (F1) housed under matched and mismatched conditions with respect to group size (pairs of two vs. groups of four birds). The...
7. Poster Flash Talks
div
06/11/2019, 15:15

see attachments, 8 posters, 3 min resp.
8. Keynote: Trans-generational effects in the evolution of ageing
Alexei Maklakov
07/11/2019, 09:00
9. The influence of parental phenotypic variation and parental exposure on sensitivity to ocean acidification in a reef fish – a molecular whole-organism approach
Celia Schunter
07/11/2019, 09:30

The impacts of climate change on marine organisms will depend on their ability to tolerate, acclimate and eventually adapt to the environmental change. We performed unique transgenerational experiments to determine the molecular response of a coral reef fish to ocean acidification. Our complex design allows us to: 1) investigate the importance of parental exposure to ocean acidification...
11. Transgenerational plasticity of a coral reef fish to ocean warming
Jennifer Donelson
07/11/2019, 09:45

For a number of years we have been using a coral reef damselfish, Acanthochomis polyacanthus, to investigate the influence of thermal conditions experienced over multiple generations on performance. As the project’s focus was to understand transgenerational effects as a means for marine fish to acclimate and adapt to rapid environmental change, two future projected increases of +1.5°C and +3°C...
12. Putting the heat on insect reproduction: adaptive and mal-adaptive transgenerational effects through increasing thermal means and extremes
Kris Sales
07/11/2019, 10:00

Extreme weather events like heatwaves, commonly defined as periods of five successive days where thermal maximums are 5oC greater than the long-term average, are predicted to be one of the most probable and hazardous challenges we face in a warming world. While natural populations have been showing climate related stress responses and extinctions for decades, the proximate mechanisms behind...
13. Discussion of examples
07/11/2019, 10:15
14. Keynote: Inheritance beyond DNA sequence: news from worms and fishes
Eric Miska
07/11/2019, 11:45

Since August Weismann (1834-1914) formulated the distinction between innate and acquired characteristics at the end of the 19th century, the debate relating to the inheritance of acquired traits has raised many controversies in the scientific community. Following convincing arguments against (e.g. William Bateson) this debate was then set aside by the majority of the scientific community....
15. Schrödinger´s Inheritance
Irene Adrian-Kalchhauser
07/11/2019, 12:15

Non-genetic inheritance (NGI) deals with inheritance mechanisms apart from DNA. Candidates for germ-cell mediated information transfer between generations are modified histones, DNA methylation, and small RNAs. These mechanisms are evolutionarily conserved. In addition, the heritability of environmental information in plants and animals has been demonstrated. Together, this has inspired a...
16. Potential epigenetic mechanisms underlying insect overwintering
Peter Pruisscher
07/11/2019, 12:30

In insects, increasing evidence shows that epigenetic changes can be passed on to future generations. This is also true for diapause, an environmentally induced state of ‘hibernation’ that is characterised by arrested development and suppressed metabolism. In Lepidoptera there is a strong paternal influence on the diapause decision of the offspring. However, not much is known about the...
17. Epigenetic reprogramming during gametogenesis and embryogenesis of threespine stickleback: Windows for adaptation during climate change?
Alexandre Fellous
07/11/2019, 12:45

Our climate is changing rapidly and organisms must either move, adapt or acclimate in order to persist. Epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation may be an important mechanism underlying fast, adaptive responses, as they can contribute to heritable changes within populations and drive rapid evolution. Crucial during gametogenesis and development (embryogenesis), epigenetic modifications...
22. Keynote: Bad beginnings and untimely ends: environments, telomeres and life history variation
Pat Monaghan
07/11/2019, 14:00

It is now well recognised that the early environment is not simply permissive of development, but can also shape the phenotype in ways that have long term consequences for performance and fitness. There are many routes, both direct and indirect, whereby such environmental effects on phenotypic development can come about and span generations. Of considerable importance in this context is...
23. Testosterone in blue tit eggs: an adaptive maternal effect?
Peter Korsten
07/11/2019, 14:30

It is well-established that the yolk of eggs of birds contains androgens like testosterone. These maternally derived hormones have been found to influence the behaviour and growth of the chicks hatching from these eggs. Hence, maternal yolk hormones have been hypothesized to act as adaptive maternal effects shaping the offspring’s phenotype, particularly in relation to the rearing environment....
24. Contribution of bacterial colonizers on host thermal adaptation
Laura Baldassarre
07/11/2019, 14:45

The phenotype of an animal cannot be explained entirely by its genes. Among the factors, other than genome, which contribute to the development and homeostasis of multicellular animals, the microbial associated community can be rapidly modified by environmental cues and may represent a mechanism for rapid acclimation and adaptation of the host to a changing environment. The Starlet Sea...
25. Keynote: Male pregnancy and transgenerational plasticity
Olivia Roth
07/11/2019, 15:30

Phenotypic changes in response to environmental influences can be transferred from one generation to the next with the potential to boosting offspring performance. This also applies to parental parasitic experience that can influence offspring immune responses, a phenomenon known as transgenerational immune priming (TGIP), which is often coupled with a vertical transfer of microbes. While in...
26. General Discussion of Mechanisms
07/11/2019, 16:00
18. Keynote: How do paternal and maternal effects coevolve?
Bram Kuijper
07/11/2019, 16:30
19. Environmental variation mediates the evolution of anticipatory parental effects
Martin Lind
07/11/2019, 17:00

Environments vary over time and if this variation is predictable, environments that are similar across generations should favour evolution of anticipatory parental effects to benefit offspring. In contrast, the absence of correlation between parental and offspring environments should select against parental effects. However, experimental evidence is scarce. We investigated the evolution of...
20. Understanding the contribution of DNA methylation variation to local adaptation
Konstantinos Sagonas
07/11/2019, 17:15

The capacity of different species to respond to a given selective environment often varies. While nucleotide diversity has long been recognised as the sole predictor of species and populations potential to adapt, current evidence suggest that populations or species may compensate for low genetic diversity through plastic responses. A possible heritable non-genetic mechanism underlying...
21. The chromatin accessibility landscape in the brain of a migratory songbird
Juan Lugo Ramos
07/11/2019, 17:30

Co-Authors: Gillian Durieux, Miriam Liedvogel
Bird Migratory behaviour depend on adaptations optimized for flight, timing, navigation and fuel allocation. The heritability of these adaptations has been shown with classical approaches of crossbreeding experiments suggesting that the genetics of migration rely on few genes with large effects. However, studies with candidate genes and population...
27. Keynote: The many roles of parental effects in evolutionary biology
Tobias Uller
08/11/2019, 09:00

There is a bewildering diversity of perspectives on parental effects. My aim in this talk is to make sense of this diversity by drawing attention to the organising role of problem agendas in evolutionary biology. I discuss and exemplify how different evolutionary problems motivate different ways to represent the relationship between parents and offspring. These representations in turn...
28. Causes and consequences of seasonal transgenerational plasticity in a precocial rodent
Anja Günther
08/11/2019, 09:30

When environments are unstable, genetic parental information is often not sufficient for offspring to become optimally adapted to the environment and parental effects may be necessary to prepare offspring for the environment they are likely to experience. Seasonally distinct life history patterns over sequential cohorts in short-lived animals are one example in which cues of the early...
29. Transgenerational plasticity and bet-hedging: a framework and a meta-analysis on insect diapause reaction norms
Jens Joschinski
08/11/2019, 09:45

In light of recent climate change phenotypic plasticity has received ample attention. Not only can plasticity evolve, it can also affect evolution by tinkering with the raw material for selection (phenotypes). Bet-hedging, however, is rarely considered in this context, despite being tightly linked to trans-generational plasticity. We argue that the neglect of bet-hedging is due to synonymizing...
30. Epigenetic gene silencing alters the mechanisms and rate of evolutionary adaptation
Dragan Stajic
08/11/2019, 10:00

Natural selection acts upon heritable variation in fitness-related traits. In principle, epigenetic, non-DNA sequence based inheritance can potentially contribute to adaptation. Whether this is the case is largely unknown. To address this, we placed a URA3 reporter gene at different positions within subtelomeric, chromatin-silenced regions in the otherwise isogenic Sacharomyces cerevisiae...
31. Keynote: Plant epigenomics: from complex traits to molecular clocks
Frank Johannes
08/11/2019, 10:45

Epigenetic modifications, including DNA methylation, have a major role in gene regulation and in the preservation of genome integrity. In plants, aberrant gains or losses of DNA methylation (i.e. ‘epimutations’) are sometimes stably inherited to subsequent generations, independently of DNA sequence changes. Here I highlight our ongoing efforts to quantify the stability and phenotypic impact of...
32. General discussion of evolutionary underpinnings and consequences
08/11/2019, 11:15
33. Closing remarks
08/11/2019, 12:15
10. Transgenerational effects in a warming ocean – which parent has the greatest impact on the offspring?
Rachel Spinks

Rising sea temperature poses a significant threat to marine fishes. While current-day populations of reef fish suffer when exposed short-term to elevated temperatures, future warming will occur over numerous generations for most species. Recent studies have shown that when parents experience warmer ocean conditions throughout life, offspring performance improves. Yet we do not know the...
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