Transgenerational effect on sexual reproduction in rotifer populations in relation to the environmental predictability of their habitats

Resumen

Understanding the processes that enable adaptation of organisms to time-varying environments is critically relevant in evolutionary ecology. A way to cope with environmental fluctuations where predictable conditions affect several generations of individuals is through non-genetic transgenerational effects. The phenotype of ancestors affects the phenotype of their descendants matching it with the expected environment of the latter. Facultatively sexual rotifers inhabiting water bodies that cover a wide gradient of environmental predictability in Eastern Spain are a good study model for this topic. In their life cycle sex is linked to diapausing-egg production that enables survival between growing seasons. In several rotifer species, sexual reproduction is inhibited in several generations after diapausing-egg hatching. We hypothesized that in ponds where the growing season length is more predictable, rotifer clones proliferate asexually longer, hence allowing a fuller exploitation of the growing season and therefore maximize diapausing-egg production by the end of the season. We tested this prediction by estimating the proportion of sexual females produced by eight clones of the rotifer <em>Brachionus plicatilis</em> inhabiting eight ponds (8x8= 64 clones) from our study system. Here, we present the raw data gathered from the experiment.