Objective: To examine the possibility that low birth weight is a feature of the inherited predisposition to high blood pressure. Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Primary care medical centre in Edinburgh. Subjects: One offspring of 452 families (231 men and 221 women aged 16-26 years) in whom blood pressure, weight, and height were measured in 1986 and whose parents had blood pressure mea...

Recent studies of wild populations provide compelling evidence that survival and reproduction decrease with age because of senescence, a decline in functional capacities at old ages. However, in the wild, little is known about effects of parental senescence on offspring quality. We used data from a 21-year study to examine the role of parental age on offspring probability of recruitment in a lo...

Whilst most animals invest equally in males and females when they reproduce, a variety of vertically transmitted parasites has evolved the ability to distort the offspring sex ratios of their hosts. One such group of parasites are male-killing bacteria. Here we report the discovery of females of the ladybird Anisosticta novemdecimpunctata that produced highly female-biased offspring sex ratios ...

Filial cannibalism (the consumption of one's own offspring) is thought to represent an adaptive strategy in many animals. However, little is known about the details of which offspring are consumed when a parent cannibalizes. Here, we examined patterns of within-brood filial cannibalism in the sand goby (Pomatoschistus minutus). Males spawned sequentially with two females, and we asked whether m...

Spatiotemporal patterns in spawning of fish influence growth and survival by affecting the environment experienced offspring during their early life stages. Therefore, identifying changes can help researchers understand population dynamics recruitment fluctuations. The Japanese sardine Sardinops melanostictus is a small pelagic that undergoes large stock Although are known to change spatially t...

The current study evaluated effects of hatch moment and immediate feed and water access within a 24-h hatch window on chicken growth and development. Five hundred four male chickens obtained from a 49-wk-old Ross 308 breeder flock were assigned to 72 cages based on hatching moment (early, midterm, or late; selected during periods of 475 to 481, 483 to 487, and 489 to 493 h after onset of incuba...

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of post-hatch feed deprivation on yolk sac utilization and subsequent performance of young broiler chickens (280) up to 35 days of age. The experimental treatments included access to feed at 8 h intervals after hatch, up to 48 h (0, 8, 16, 24, 32, 40 or 48 h). Water was offered ad libitum to all the groups immediately after placement. Results indi...

This study determined the availability of glycerol as indicator of energy status of broiler chicks during hatch, and the behavior of chicks subjected to three fasting times with reference to production standards. Chicks originating from 31 and 54 week-old Ross breeder flocks were utilized. Samples of liver were taken from chicks during the following time periods: pipping of eggshell, wet hatch,...

Variation in recruitment patterns and dispersal behavior can have important consequences for population viability, genetic structure, and rates of evolutionary change. From 1992 to 2006 we studied a marked population of American Kestrels (Falco sparverius) nesting in boxes in southwestern Idaho to identify factors that affect local recruitment and natal dispersal distances. A low proportion (4%...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of dietary vitamin E on reproductive and productive parameters in Japanese quails. A total number of 240 female and 80 male Japanese quail were divided into five treatments with four replications in a completely randomized design. Experimental diets were zero control, 30, 60, 120 and 240 mg kg-1 of vitamin E. Fertility and total hatch...