Mate choice based on symmetry and sexual dimorphism may then provide indirect benefits, acquiring good-genes from partners that benefit offspring, or direct benefits, acquiring factors other than good-genes from partners that benefit the choosing individual, such as resources.
In contrast, we did not find that the benign control watering treatments of parents benefited offspring under drought conditions.
Instead, we found the opposite to be true, that is, the drought stress treatments of the parents benefited offspring under drought conditions.
It is also possible that strategies to improve fetal nutrition, for example through maternal nutritional supplementation, could benefit offspring health independently of birthweight [ 41].
Results from the present study among a U.S. cohort with moderate fish intake suggest that maternal fish consumption during pregnancy may benefit offspring cognition in infancy but that exposure to higher levels of mercury has adverse effects on child cognition.
This can be understood in terms of Hamilton's rule [ 10] of kin selection which states that the condition for an altruistic trait to increase in the next generation is (1) rb > c where r is the coefficient of relatedness between actor and recipient, b is the fitness benefit (offspring gain) provided to the recipient, and c is the reproductive cost to the actor for providing benefits.
Maternal antibody transfer may particularly benefit young offspring whose own immune systems have not yet developed, but has also been suggested to permanently alter offspring immune function (Lemke & Lange 1999; Grindstaff et al. 2003).
Motivated by the observation that, in isolation, mate preference [ 5, 6], intrasexual competition [ 7], and polyandry [ 8, 9] all confer fitness benefits to offspring, we aimed to identify whether the effects of competition for mating success within a social environment also improved offspring fitness, and if so, to what degree and through which components of fitness.
The benefits that offspring received when helpers were present were thereby concealed by the overall reduction of the females' investment in their eggs.
This suggests that the idiosyncratic mate choice of females is not driven by genetic benefits for offspring (at least for any that act early in life)", said Professor Jennions.
