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Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs

Hatching synchrony is wide-spread amongst egg-laying species and is thought to enhance offspring survival, notably by diluting predation risks. Turtle and snake eggs were shown to achieve synchronous hatching by altering development rates (where less advanced eggs may accelerate development) or by h...

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Autores principales: Aubret, Fabien, Bignon, Florent, Bouffet-Halle, Alix, Blanvillain, Gaëlle, Kok, Philippe J. R., Souchet, Jérémie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5465057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28596606
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03355-y
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author Aubret, Fabien
Bignon, Florent
Bouffet-Halle, Alix
Blanvillain, Gaëlle
Kok, Philippe J. R.
Souchet, Jérémie
author_facet Aubret, Fabien
Bignon, Florent
Bouffet-Halle, Alix
Blanvillain, Gaëlle
Kok, Philippe J. R.
Souchet, Jérémie
author_sort Aubret, Fabien
collection PubMed
description Hatching synchrony is wide-spread amongst egg-laying species and is thought to enhance offspring survival, notably by diluting predation risks. Turtle and snake eggs were shown to achieve synchronous hatching by altering development rates (where less advanced eggs may accelerate development) or by hatching prematurely (where underdeveloped embryos hatch concurrently with full-term embryos). In Natricine snakes, smaller eggs tend to slow down metabolism throughout incubation in order to hatch synchronously with larger eggs. To explore the underlying mechanism of this phenomenon we experimentally manipulated six clutches, where half of the eggs were reduced in mass by removing 7.2% of yolk, and half were used as the control. The former experienced higher heart rates throughout the incubation period, hatched earlier and produced smaller hatchlings than the latter. This study supports the idea that developmental rates are related to egg mass in snake eggs and demonstrates that the relationship can be influenced by removing yolk after egg-laying. The shift in heart rates however occurred in the opposite direction to expected, with higher heart rates in yolk-removed eggs resulting in earlier hatching rather than lower heart rates resulting in synchronous hatching, warranting further research on the topic.
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spelling pubmed-54650572017-06-14 Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs Aubret, Fabien Bignon, Florent Bouffet-Halle, Alix Blanvillain, Gaëlle Kok, Philippe J. R. Souchet, Jérémie Sci Rep Article Hatching synchrony is wide-spread amongst egg-laying species and is thought to enhance offspring survival, notably by diluting predation risks. Turtle and snake eggs were shown to achieve synchronous hatching by altering development rates (where less advanced eggs may accelerate development) or by hatching prematurely (where underdeveloped embryos hatch concurrently with full-term embryos). In Natricine snakes, smaller eggs tend to slow down metabolism throughout incubation in order to hatch synchronously with larger eggs. To explore the underlying mechanism of this phenomenon we experimentally manipulated six clutches, where half of the eggs were reduced in mass by removing 7.2% of yolk, and half were used as the control. The former experienced higher heart rates throughout the incubation period, hatched earlier and produced smaller hatchlings than the latter. This study supports the idea that developmental rates are related to egg mass in snake eggs and demonstrates that the relationship can be influenced by removing yolk after egg-laying. The shift in heart rates however occurred in the opposite direction to expected, with higher heart rates in yolk-removed eggs resulting in earlier hatching rather than lower heart rates resulting in synchronous hatching, warranting further research on the topic. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5465057/ /pubmed/28596606 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03355-y Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Aubret, Fabien
Bignon, Florent
Bouffet-Halle, Alix
Blanvillain, Gaëlle
Kok, Philippe J. R.
Souchet, Jérémie
Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs
title Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs
title_full Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs
title_fullStr Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs
title_full_unstemmed Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs
title_short Yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs
title_sort yolk removal generates hatching asynchrony in snake eggs
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5465057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28596606
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03355-y
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