Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Testing small clutch size models with Daphnia.

Meghan A Guinnee1, Stuart A West, Tom J Little

  • 1Institute of Cell, Animal, and Population Biology, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, United Kingdom. meghan.gannon@ed.ac.uk

The American Naturalist
|July 22, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Corticosterone Under Experimental Manipulation of Nutrition and Parasite Burden in a Wild Rodent System.

Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology·2026
Same author

Social immunity can be a consequence and cause of social evolution.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

Cytoplasmic flow dynamics in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are intrinsic and independent of plant hosts.

Fungal biology·2026
Same author

Symbiotic fungi underlie the regeneration potential of island rainforests.

Current biology : CB·2026
Same author

An insect that cooperates like bacteria.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026
Same author

The Evolutionary and Ecological Consequences of Cooperation.

The American naturalist·2026

Life-history theory predicts clutch size influences egg size variance. Studies on Daphnia magna show variance decreases with clutch size, but at a slower rate than predicted, with mean egg volume also decreasing.

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Reproductive Biology

Background:

  • Life-history theory posits predictable relationships between reproductive effort and offspring traits.
  • Variance in egg size is expected to decrease as clutch size increases due to resource allocation strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between clutch size and egg volume variance in Daphnia magna.
  • To test predictions of life-history theory regarding resource allocation to eggs under varying food conditions.

Main Methods:

  • Studied Daphnia magna across 350 distinct food treatments.
  • Recorded clutch size and individual egg volumes for the first clutch.
  • Analyzed the relationship between clutch size, egg volume variance, and mean egg volume.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Confirmed a linear relationship between clutch size and reproductive resources.
  • Observed a decrease in egg volume variance with increasing clutch size.
  • Found that the rate of decrease in egg volume range was slower than predicted by theory.
  • Noted that mean egg volume decreased as clutch size increased.

Conclusions:

  • Daphnia magna allocates resources linearly and shares them relatively equally among eggs.
  • Deviations from theoretical predictions may be due to a lower limit on egg size or selection for smaller eggs under high food availability.
  • Findings contribute to understanding the plasticity of reproductive traits in response to environmental conditions.