Abstract
Because phenotypic plasticity can operate both within and between
generations, phenotypic outcomes are often shaped by a complex history of
environmental signals. For example, parental and embryonic experiences
with predation risk can both independently and interactively influence
prey offspring traits early in their life. Parental and embryonic risk
experiences can also independently shape offspring phenotypes throughout
an offspring’s ontogeny, but the persistence of their interactive effects
throughout offspring ontogeny is unknown. We examined the effects of
parental and embryonic experiences with predation risk on the response of
one-year-old prey (the carnivorous snail, Nucella lapillus) offspring to
current predation risk. We found that parental and embryonic risk
experiences had largely independent effects on offspring performance and
that these effects were context dependent. Parental experience with risk
had strong impacts on multiple offspring traits in the presence of current
risk that generally improved offspring performance under risk, but
embryonic risk experience had relatively weaker effects and only operated
in the absence of current risk to reduce offspring growth. These results
illustrate that past environmental experiences can dynamically shape
organism phenotypes across ontogeny and that attention to these effects is
key to a better understanding of predator/prey dynamics in natural
systems.