Female sticklebacks that are confronted by predators while producing eggs generate offspring with impaired learning abilities.

Katie McGhee of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her colleagues used a fake predator to repeatedly chase one set of female threespined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus; pictured), while leaving another set to produce their eggs in peace. Adult offspring from both groups initially showed similar performances in a task in which the animals learned to associate the colour blue with a food reward. But after five days of the task, the offspring of mothers exposed to predators took twice as long to find the food as did the control group.

Credit: B. WATTS/ALAMY

At least in these fish, maternal stress can have long-lasting effects on the learning ability of offspring, the authors say.

Biol. Lett. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2012.0685 (2012)

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