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The adaptive significance of maternal effects
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Abstract
Recently, the adaptive significance of maternal effects has been increasingly recognized.
No longer are maternal effects relegated as simple `troublesome sources of environmental
resemblance' that confound our ability to estimate accurately the genetic basis of
traits of interest. Rather, it has become evident that many maternal effects have
been shaped by the action of natural selection to act as a mechanism for adaptive
phenotypic response to environmental heterogeneity. Consequently, maternal experience
is translated into variation in offspring fitness.