Over the past decade, birds have proven to be excellent models to study hormone-mediated
maternal effects in an evolutionary framework. Almost all these studies focus on the function …

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the physiology, ecology, and behavior of
hormones in avian eggs. The main source of hormones found in avian eggs is the maturing …

Although mothers influence the traits of their offspring in many ways beyond the
transmission of genes, it remains unclear how important such 'maternal effects' are to …

Incubating new ideas about avian reproduction/SJ Reynolds & DC Deeming--The fossil
record and evolution of avian egg nesting and incubation/DC Deeming--Nest construction …

Maternal effects are important in epigenetic determination of offspring phenotypes during all
life stages. In the chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), transgenerational transfer of egg yolk …

Prenatal resource allocation to offspring can be influenced by maternal environment and
offspring value, and affect offspring survival. An important pathway for flexible maternal …

Greater offspring predation favors evolution of faster development among species. We
hypothesized that greater offspring predation exerts selection on mothers to increase levels …

Animals often breed in colonies that can vary in size by several orders of magnitude. Colony-
size variation is perplexing because individuals in some colony sizes have lower fitness …

In many species, embryos are exposed to maternal hormones in utero, in the egg, or in the
seed. In birds, mothers deposit substantial testosterone into their eggs, which enhances …

Competition between conspecifics during the breeding season can result in behavioural and
physiological programming of offspring via maternal effects. For birds, in which maternal …