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Dietary effects on life history traits in a terrestrial isopod: the importance of evaluating maternal effects and trade-offs

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Abstract

Studies of life history aim to explain patterns in the evolution of reproductive investment, growth, and survival. Trade-offs between traits are a fundamental component of life history theory. In herbivorous arthropods life history traits are often responsive to variation in numerous environmental factors, especially diet quality. Using three artificial diets under controlled laboratory conditions, we examined changes in life history traits (i.e. growth rate, offspring number, offspring size, incubation period), trade-offs between traits, and maternal effect on the growth rate of offspring, in the common woodlouse (terrestrial isopod), Porcellio laevis. The high protein diet had significant impacts on offspring production, triggering a smaller-sized offspring, and demonstrating a trade-off between these last two traits. The high carbohydrate diet seldom exerted a significant effect on incubation period. The quality of dietary items evidently has important consequences on the life history of the mother and, thus, on offspring growth; the directions of these effects, however, were opposite. Mothers fed diets with high protein concentrations presented significant maternal effects, measured as offspring growth rate during later ontogeny. Our results support the notion that protein, rather than carbohydrate, concentrations in the diet limit herbivorous arthropods, and have significant consequences on life history traits, as was seen for P. laevis. Clearly, the change in phenotypic correlations between incubation period and offspring number from negative to positive is an empirical demonstration of the context dependence of life history trait trade-offs.

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Acknowledgements

Leonardo Bacigalupe and Roberto Nespolo provided helpful comments on these experiments and/or earlier versions of this manuscript. Paula Emily Neill provided valuable comments that greatly improved the manuscript. We thank the referees for their constructive criticism and their valuable advice. Financial support was provided by a CONICYT doctoral thesis fellowship to M.A.L. and by FONDAP 1501-001 Program 1 to F.B.

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  1. Center for Advanced Studies in Ecology & Biodiversity, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Departamento de Ecología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, CP 6513677, Santiago, Chile

    Marco A. Lardies, Mauricio J. Carter & Francisco Bozinovic

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  1. Marco A. Lardies
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  2. Mauricio J. Carter
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Correspondence to Marco A. Lardies.

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Lardies, M.A., Carter, M.J. & Bozinovic, F. Dietary effects on life history traits in a terrestrial isopod: the importance of evaluating maternal effects and trade-offs. Oecologia 138, 387–395 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1447-5

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