Mother's age and hatching phenology strategy of Heterocypris incongruens (Crustacea: Ostracoda) in unpredictable environment.

We report experimental evidence of egg polyphenism in clonal lineages of Heterocypris incongruens from an ephemeral pond on a Mediterranean Island (Lampedusa, Italy). In controlled laboratory conditions, clonal females produced three different kinds of eggs: (i) resting and desiccation-resistant eggs, (ii) nonresting eggs that hatched gradually within 2 month hydroperiod, and (iii) nonresting delayed development eggs that hatched synchronously. Clonal females showed a diversified bet-hedging strategy to spread risk of reproduction in ponds with unpredictable hydroperiod. They adjusted proportion of different egg phenotypes in response to experimental temperature and photoperiod that are proxies for different hydroperiod unpredictability. The proportion of resting eggs is not affected by maternal age at deposition, but mother’s age has a key role in defining the development time and the hatching phenology of nonresting eggs. Genetically identical eggs kept at the same controlled laboratory conditions showed a U-shaped distribution of development time. Development time variance decreased with mother’s age at deposition. The resulting wedge-shaped relationship between development time and mother’s age at deposition may be interpreted by considering mother’s age as a proxy for the probability of drought onset. The older the mother, the shorter the latency to drought and the shorter is the time for nonresting eggs to hatch. Considering only the delayed development of eggs that hatch synchronously, development time is inversely related to the mother’s age at deposition: this relationship generates the observed hatching peak.