Seasonal and interannual components of intrapopulation variation in clutch size and egg size of a darter

Previous studies have offered suggestive but sometimes conflicting glimpses at the range and patterns of seasonal and interannual variation in female darter life-history traits. The present study examined clutch-size and egg-size variation from a single Mississippi population of brighteye darters (Etheostoma lynceum), collected at regular intervals over four sequential spawning seasons. Both life-history traits were significantly correlated with body size, and they both showed significant variation within and among breeding seasons. The overall intraseasonal trends in these traits involved an increase in clutch size (CS) and a decrease in egg size from early to late periods of the spawning season. Clutch size and egg size showed a weak but significant negative correlation, which was indicative of a trade-off between the two clutch parameters. Seasonal changes in temperature appear to be related to differing patterns of seasonal variation in egg size reported in the literature for darters. Inverse seasonal shifts in egg size and CS in the brighteye darter may represent adaptive phenotypic plasticity that allows females to produce larger, competitively superior offspring early in the reproductive season when there is low supply of food for them (parental investment hypothesis) or to produce larger eggs early in the reproductive season to ensure that each egg is adequately provisioned in the face of uncertainty (bet-hedging hypothesis) if the food available for the young is unpredictable early in the season. Consistent with theoretical predictions, egg size showed less phenotypic variability than CS.