Independent life history evolution between generations of bivoltine species: a case study of cyclical parthenogenesis

Abstract

Successive generations of bi- and multivoltine species encounter differing biotic and abiotic environments intra-annually. The question of whether selection can independently adjust the relationship between body size and components of reproductive effort within successive generations in response to generation-specific environmental variation is applicable to a diversity of taxa. Herein, we develop a conceptual framework that illustrates increasingly independent life history adjustments between successive generations of taxa exhibiting complex life cycles. We apply this framework to the reproductive biology of the gall-forming insect, Belonocnema treatae (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae). This bivoltine species expresses cyclical parthenogenesis in which alternating sexual and asexual generations develop in different seasons and different environments. We tested the hypotheses that ecological divergence between the alternate generations is accompanied by generational differences in body size, egg size, and egg number and by changes in the relationships between body size and these components of reproductive effort. Increased potential reproductive effort of sexual generation B. treatae is attained by increased body size and egg number (with no trade-off between egg number and egg size) and by a significant increase in the slope of the relationship between body size and potential fecundity. These generation-specific relationships, interpreted in the context of the model framework, suggest that within each generation selection has independently molded the relationships relating body size to potential fecundity and potential reproductive effort in B. treatae. The conceptual framework is broadly applicable to comparisons involving the alternating generations of bi- and multivoltine species.