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1. Developmental tradeoffs: Fruit availability and offspring age influence mother and offspring activity in Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii)

   Kane, EE; Susanto, TW; Knott, CD (January 2021, American journal of physical anthropology)

   null (Ed.)

   Bornean orangutans' extended life history may be an adaptation to their forest habitat, characterized by dramatically fluctuating fruit availability. We hypothesize that juveniles rest and are carried more when fruit availability is low, spending less time in developmentally important behavior including play and independent travel to conserve energy. We test this using generalized linear mixed models and data derived from 976 follows of infant and juvenile orangutans collected during periods of varying fruit availability. Age (p<0.001), but not fruit availability (p>0.05) significantly affected offsprings’ time being carried (β=-8,1) and resting (β=-2.6, p<0.001). Younger individuals spent more time clinging and resting regardless of fruit availability. Fruit availability and offspring age interact to affect the proportion of time juveniles play (β=1.5, p<0.001) and travel (β=-0.8, p<0.001). Fruit availability impacts younger juveniles’ play behavior more dramatically than older juveniles: younger juveniles play more when fruit availability is high than when it is low, while older juveniles exhibit little variation in time spent playing depending on fruit availability. Juveniles aged 6-8 travel more when fruit availability is medium and high, juveniles aged 2-5 travel slightly less when fruit availability is high, and juveniles under 2 rarely travel independently. We also examined relationships between fruit availability, offspring age, and maternal travel distance using 2065 mother-offspring follows, demonstrating that females travel shorter distances with offspring under four, and when fruit availability is low. Thus, orangutans shift activity in response to fruit availability and throughout development, buffering young orangutans against energy depletion but suppressing developmentally important activities. Funders: NSF (9414388, BCS-1638823, BCS-0936199); National Geographic; USFish/Wildlife (F18AP00898, F15AP00812, F13AP00920, 96200-0-G249, 96200-9-G110); Leakey; Disney Conservation Fund; Wenner-Gren; Nacey-Maggioncalda; Conservation-Food-Health; Orangutan Conservancy; Woodland Park Zoo 

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2. Inheritance of somatic mutations by animal offspring

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn0707  

   Vasquez Kuntz, Kate L.; Kitchen, Sheila A.; Conn, Trinity L.; Vohsen, Samuel A.; Chan, Andrea N.; Vermeij, Mark J.; Page, Christopher; Marhaver, Kristen L.; Baums, Iliana B. (September 2022, Science Advances)

   Since 1892, it has been widely assumed that somatic mutations are evolutionarily irrelevant in animals because they cannot be inherited by offspring. However, some nonbilaterians segregate the soma and germline late in development or never, leaving the evolutionary fate of their somatic mutations unknown. By investigating uni- and biparental reproduction in the coralAcropora palmata(Cnidaria, Anthozoa), we found that uniparental, meiotic offspring harbored 50% of the 268 somatic mutations present in their parent. Thus, somatic mutations accumulated in adult coral animals, entered the germline, and were passed on to swimming larvae that grew into healthy juvenile corals. In this way, somatic mutations can increase allelic diversity and facilitate adaptation across habitats and generations in animals. 

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3. Offspring GAN augments biased human genomic data

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3535508.3545537  

   Das, Supratim; Shi, Xinghua (January 2022, Proceedings of the 13th ACM International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Health Informatics)
4. Urban resources limit pair coordination over offspring provisioning

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-72951-2  

   Baldan, Davide; Ouyang, Jenny Q. (September 2020, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract The amount of care parents provide to the offspring is complicated by an evolutionary conflict of interest (‘sexual conflict’) between the two parents. Recent theoretical models suggest that pair coordination of the provisioning may reduce this conflict and increase parent and offspring fitness. Despite empirical studies showing that pair coordination is common in avian species, it remains unclear how environmental and ecological conditions might promote or limit the ability of parents to coordinate care. We compared the level of pair coordination, measured as alternation and synchrony of the nest visits, of house wrensTroglodytes aedonpairs breeding in a rural (10 nests) and a suburban (9 nests) site and investigated how differences in parental behaviours were related to habitat composition, prey abundance and how they ultimately related to reproductive success. We found that parents alternated and synchronized their nest visits more in the rural site compared to the suburban one. The suburban site is characterized by a more fragmented habitat with more coniferous trees and less caterpillar availability. Offspring from the rural site were heavier at fledging than at the suburban site. Taken together, these results suggest that environmental conditions play an important role on the emergence of coordinated parental care and that considering environmental variables is pivotal to assess the fitness consequences of parental strategies. 

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5. Maternal death and offspring fitness in multiple wild primates

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2015317118  

   Zipple, Matthew N.; Altmann, Jeanne; Campos, Fernando A.; Cords, Marina; Fedigan, Linda M.; Lawler, Richard R.; Lonsdorf, Elizabeth V.; Perry, Susan; Pusey, Anne E.; Stoinski, Tara S.; et al (December 2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Primate offspring often depend on their mothers well beyond the age of weaning, and offspring that experience maternal death in early life can suffer substantial reductions in fitness across the life span. Here, we leverage data from eight wild primate populations (seven species) to examine two underappreciated pathways linking early maternal death and offspring fitness that are distinct from direct effects of orphaning on offspring survival. First, we show that, for five of the seven species, offspring face reduced survival during the years immediately preceding maternal death, while the mother is still alive. Second, we identify an intergenerational effect of early maternal loss in three species (muriquis, baboons, and blue monkeys), such that early maternal death experienced in one generation leads to reduced offspring survival in the next. Our results have important implications for the evolution of slow life histories in primates, as they suggest that maternal condition and survival are more important for offspring fitness than previously realized. 

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