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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. Holt2,*

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


Figure 1
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  		Fig. 1. Graph showing the relationship between height (mm) and body mass (g) for juvenile seahorses (N=89; r=0.98; P<0.0001).

 

Figure 2
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  		Fig. 2. (A) Brood size comparison between old (OC) and young (YC) couples; box-whisker plot showing the mean ± s.e.m. (boxes) and s.d. (whiskers) (F1,10=6.45, *P=0.029). (B) Comparison of offspring survival curves from old (OC; open squares) and young (YC, solid circles) couples. Least-squares survival functions (fitted lines) for offspring from the OC (N=508, offspring from six couples) and YC (N=263, offspring from six couples). Survival of offspring from YC is significantly poorer than from OC (P<0.0001).

 

Figure 3
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  		Fig. 3. Comparison of group mean (± s.e.m.) heights of offspring from the old couples (OC, open squares; N=6) and young couples (YC, solid circles; N=6) vs age (weeks). **P<0.001, F1,39=6.45.

 

Figure 4
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  		Fig. 4. (A,B) Distribution histograms for heights of newborn seahorses from large parents (A) and small parents (B). Heights of newborns from the six large males showed a pronounced negative skew (coefficient of skew=-0.446; N=298; Shapiro-Wilks test; P=0.0018) but the newborns from small males did not show this skew (N=262). (C,D) Medians and 25th percentiles for the height distributions (mm) of newborn seahorse cohorts from large parents (C) and small parents (D) between weeks 1 and 7. Distributions with significant negative skews are indicated (*P<0.05 and **P<0.01).

 

Figure 5
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  		Fig. 5. (A) Exemplar growth curves between weeks 1 and 7 for offspring from one old couple (OC; red open squares) and one young couple (YC; blue circles) male and their associated scatter of individual data points. (B,C) Scatterplots and linear regression lines for the relationships between cohort growth coefficients (q) and number of newborns in the cohorts, for large parents (OC; B) and small parents (YC; C). Significant and negative correlation and regressions were observed for the OC group (correlation: r=-0.82, P<0.05; regression: growth coefficient=30.456-0.1173xnumber of newborns; F1,4=7.94, P=0.047; N=6) but no corresponding correlation was observed for the YC group (r=0.048; P>0.9; N=6).

 

Figure 6
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  		Fig. 6. (A) A photograph of a pregnant male seahorse with three transverse planes through the brood pouch indicated by lines 1-3. (B) MRI scans of transverse planes 1-3 (top to bottom). The positions of individual pouch embryos (PE) around the periphery of the brood pouch are indicated by arrows and the empty interior of the brood pouch is indicated by arrowheads. (C,D) Photographs of ventrally and dorsally located embryo attachment sites within the brood pouch (arrows). Ventrally located attachment sites are very shallow in comparison to those located dorsally. Scale bars, (A) 1.3 cm; (C,D) 3 mm.

 




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