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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Starvation tolerance of rotifers produced from parthenogenetic eggs and from diapausing eggs: a life table approach

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Monogonont rotifers have to cope with environmental variation by producing diapausing stages.Cyclically, parthenogenetic rotifers produce females by (i) parthenogenetic eggs and (ii) sexuallyproduced eggs. Parthenogenetic eggs hatch shortly after ovoposition, frequently while they are carriedby their mothers. Sexual eggs go into dormancy and hatch in the sediment, in response to specificenvironmental cues. Therefore, it is expected that post-diapause and parthenogenetic offspring wouldface different environments. Moreover, resource allocation is higher in diapausing eggs than inparthenogenetic eggs. In this study, the response to starvation of females obtained from partheno-genetic eggs and from diapausing eggs of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis was compared. Starvedindividuals showed unexpectedly long maximum longevity ( 12 days). The average lifespan andthe lifespan variance of individuals hatched from parthenogenetic eggs were higher than those ofindividuals hatched from diapausing eggs. Contrasting with a previous experimental finding, ourresults do not support the hypothesis that high resource allocation in diapausing eggs causes highstarvation tolerance. Lower survival of individuals hatched from diapausing eggs could be caused bythe diversion of energy to other functions (i.e. maintenance during diapause or the hatching event), orthe result of the variance in the allocation of resources in parthenogenetic eggs. We hypothesize thatresource allocation in diapausing eggs follows a conservative pattern, while it is more opportunisticin parthenogenetic eggs.