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First published online August 3, 2006
Journal of Experimental Biology 209, 3055-3061 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
doi: 10.1242/jeb.02336

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Effect of parental age and associated size on fecundity, growth and survival in the yellow seahorse Hippocampus kuda

Borys Dzyuba¹, Katrien J. W. Van Look², Alex Cliffe³, Heather J. Koldewey³ and William V. Holt^2,*

¹ Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of the National Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine, 23 Pereyaslavskaya Street, Kharkov 310015, Ukraine
² Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's
³ Park, London NW1 4RY, UK and ³Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: Bill.holt{at}ioz.ac.uk)

Accepted 16 May 2006

Seahorses, together with the pipefishes (Family Syngnathidae), are the only vertebrates in which embryonic development takes place within a specialised body compartment, the brood pouch, of the male instead of the female. Embryos develop in close association with the brood pouch epithelium in a manner that bears some resemblance to embryo-placental relationships in mammals. We have explored the hypothesis that parental body size and age should affect offspring postnatal growth and survival if brood pouch quality impacts upon prenatal embryonic nutrition or respiration. Using an aquarium population of the yellow seahorse, Hippocampus kuda, we show here that large parents produce offspring whose initial postnatal growth rates (weeks one to three) were significantly higher than those of the offspring of younger and smaller parents. Whereas 90% of offspring from the larger parents survived for the duration of the study (7 weeks), less that 50% of offspring from smaller parents survived for the same period. For the offspring of large parents, growth rates from individual males were negatively correlated with the number of offspring in the cohort (r=-0.82; P<0.05); this was not the case for offspring from small parents (r=0.048; P>0.9). Observations of embryos within the pouch suggested that when relatively few embryos are present they may attach to functionally advantageous sites and thus gain physiological support during gestation. These results suggest that male body size, and pouch size and function, may influence the future fitness and survival of their offspring.

Key words: yellow seahorse, Hippocampus kuda, post-natal growth, attachment site, pouch, embryo, Barker hypothesis, foetal origins hypothesis

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