Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sex-Specific Developmental Plasticity In Response To Yolk Corticosterone In An Oviparous Lizard, Tobias O. Uller, Johan Hollander, Lee Astheimer, Mats M. Olsson

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Corticosterone exposure during prenatal development as a result of maternal upregulation of circulating hormone levels has been shown to have effects on offspring development in mammals. Corticosterone has also been documented in egg yolk in oviparous vertebrates, but the extent to which this influences phenotypic development is less studied. We show that maternal corticosterone is transferred to egg yolk in an oviparous lizard (the mallee dragon, Ctenophorus fordi Storr), with significant variation among clutches in hormone levels. Experimental elevation of yolk corticosterone did not affect hatching success, incubation period or offspring sex ratio. However, corticosterone did have a sex-specific effect …