Fig. 1: Two main hypotheses examine the fitness effects of the interplay between conditions experienced during development and those encountered later in life.
From: Hardship at birth alters the impact of climate change on a long-lived predator
In the “developmental constraint” or “silver spoon” hypothesis (a), harsh conditions during early development constrain phenotype quality, undermining its future fitness, so that phenotypes generated in favourable settings are always superior to those generated under hardship regardless of the environment experienced later in life. Thus, for all levels of environmental quality encountered in adult life (x-axis), the fitness of individuals that experienced favourable (natal) conditions during development is always higher than the fitness of those that experienced hardship during development (parallel lines of a). In the “predictive adaptive response” hypothesis (PAR, b) individuals enjoy a fitness advantage when they encounter as adults the same environmental quality that they experienced during development. Thus, for example, the fitness of individuals that experienced hardship during development is inferior to the one of other individuals when adult conditions are favourable, but superior when adult conditions are again challenging. This results in the crossing lines of b. Readapted from refs. 12,28,70.
