Transgenerational cross-tolerance to stress: parental exposure to predators increases offspring contaminant tolerance Stephanie C. Plautz • Taylor Guest • Meghan A. Funkhouser • Christopher J. Salice Accepted: 28 February 2013 / Published online: 13 March 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Transgenerational effects of stressors can have important implications for offspring fitness and the respon- ses of offspring to future stressful conditions. Parental effects, a common type of transgenerational effect, are non- genetic influences on offspring phenotype that result from parental phenotypes or environments. Little is known, however, about how parental exposure to a stressor effects offspring responses to other stressors despite this type of multi-stressor scenario being common. To better understand the role that parental effects have on offspring contaminant tolerance, we raised freshwater snails, Biomphalaria glab- rata, in the presence or absence of predator threat (cray- fish ? crushed snail) for 12 weeks. Predators are common stressors in aquatic systems and can co-occur with chemical contaminants. We then collected egg masses from parental snails and exposed their offspring to cadmium and malathion survival challenges. Snails raised in the presence of predator threat displayed indicators of stress, including increased time to first reproduction, lower production of egg masses per snail per day and fewer eggs per egg mass, and had smaller shell lengths at 6.5 weeks old compared to snails not exposed to predator threat. Parental exposure to predator threat increased the cadmium tolerance of offspring but did not affect malathion tolerance. These results may have important implications for understanding effects of multiple stressors and indicate that the parental environment can influence responses to contaminants in offspring. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that a biotic stressor in the parental environment can significantly affect the con- taminant tolerance of their offspring. Keywords Biomphalaria glabrata Á Non-consumptive predation Á Parental effect Á Predator cue Á Transgenerational effect Introduction Parental effects are effects on offspring phenotype that result from parental phenotypes or the interaction of parents with their environment (Bernardo 1996; Mousseau and Fox 1998; Badyaev and Uller 2009). Parental effects are transmitted to offspring by means other than alterations in the DNA sequence, including epigenetic effects, parental habitat modification, and the transfer of organelles, hormones, nutrients, and immune system factors to offspring (see Badyaev and Uller 2009 and references). One reason parental effects are thought to be important is that parents can provide offspring with an enhanced ability to tolerate certain stressful conditions based on the environment experienced by the parents (Mousseau and Fox 1998) and thereby may ‘‘prepare’’ offspring for future stressful conditions. Here, we define a stressor as an environmental factor that alters organisms’ physiological or life history parameters. Many ecological studies have shown that parental effects resulting from biotic and abiotic environmental factors can be important determinants of offspring fitness (Mousseau and Fox 1998; Marshall and Uller 2007). For example, the pro- portion of diapausing offspring produced by insects is affected by photoperiod, temperature, and food availability S. C. Plautz (&) Á T. Guest Á M. A. Funkhouser Á C. J. Salice Department of Environmental Toxicology, The Institute of Environmental and Human Health, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA e-mail: stephanie.plautz@tiehh.ttu.edu Present Address: T. Guest Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, University of Southern Mississippi, Ocean Springs, MS 39564, USA 123 Ecotoxicology (2013) 22:854–861 DOI 10.1007/s10646-013-1056-y