Date of Award

1-1-2019

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Organizational Unit

Biological Sciences

First Advisor

Shannon M. Murphy, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Robin Tinghitella

Third Advisor

Erica Larson, Ph.D.

Fourth Advisor

Angela Smilanich, Ph.D.

Keywords

Aging, Immunocompetency, Maternal age, Maternal effects, Offspring fitness, Parental effects

Abstract

Parental age can affect offspring fitness across taxa and through various mechanisms. However, the effect(s) of advanced maternal age on offspring, particularly in insects, has not been comprehensively reviewed making it difficult to draw conclusions about the effects of advanced maternal age on offspring in insects. In my first chapter, I reviewed maternal age literature and found overall negative effects of advanced maternal age on offspring fitness. However, results vary depending on which fitness measures were used, the life stages at which offspring were measured, and the experimental design of the study. In my second chapter, I conducted an experiment where I collected a suite of fitness measures, including immune response, which is often overlooked, and found that advanced maternal age has an overall positive effect on offspring fitness. My work highlights the importance of following offspring throughout all life stages and implementing various fitness measures, including immune function.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Claudia Jean Hallagan

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

79 p.

Discipline

Aging, Evolution & development, Ecology

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