The effect of parental rearing conditions on offspring life history in Anopheles stephensi

Abstract

Background. The environmental conditions experienced by parents are increasingly recognized to impact the success of offspring. Little is known on the presence of such parental effects in Anopheles. If present, parental effects could influence mosquito breeding programmes, some malaria control measures and have epidemiological and evolutionary consequences. Methods. The presence of parental effects on offspring emergence time, size, survival, blood meal size and fecundity in laboratory reared An. stephensi were tested. Results. Parental rearing conditions did not influence the time taken for offspring to emerge, or their size or survival as adults. However, parental effects were influential in determining the fecundity of daughters. Counter-intuitively, daughters of parents reared in low food conditions produced larger egg clutches than daughters of parents reared in high food conditions. Offspring reared in low food conditions took larger blood meals if their parents had also experienced a low food environment. Conclusion. So far as we are aware, this is the first evidence of parental effects on progeny in Anopheles. © 2007 Grech et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.