Maternal effects play important roles in phenotypic variations among individuals and are thus considered to regulate population performance in responses to environmental stress. High ammonia levels are known to suppress population growth of the rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus. However, it remains unclear whether maternal environmental ammonia stress influences the offspring phenotypic variation and, if so, how it affects the offspring population dynamics in the rotifer. The present work examined variations in life history, morphology, feeding and digestive activities of B. calyciflorus offspring affected by maternal ammonia stress and the effect of the above variations on offspring population dynamics. We observed increased fitness in the offspring population affected by the cumulative maternal effect. There was a trade-off between offspring (F₁) survival and reproductive investment under maternal (F₀) ammonia stress. Population growth of the offspring possibly increased via decreasing body size and posterolateral spine length while enhancing cellulase activity. Moreover, the absence of the posterolateral spine of the rotifer was a sensitive response to maternal ammonia stress. These findings underscore maternal environmental stress as an important source of phenotypic variations and highlight these multiple responses work together to affect population dynamics.

母体效应在个体之间的表型变异中起着重要作用，因此被认为可以调节种群对环境压力的反应。众所周知，高氨水平会抑制轮虫Brachionus calyciflorus 的种群增长。然而，目前尚不清楚母体环境氨应激是否影响后代表型变异，如果是，它如何影响轮虫的后代种群动态。目前的工作研究了B. calyciflorus生活史、形态、摄食和消化活动的变化受母体氨应激影响的后代以及上述变化对后代种群动态的影响。我们观察到受累积母体效应影响的后代群体的适应性增加。在母体（F ₀）氨胁迫下，后代（F ₁）存活和生殖投资之间存在权衡。后代的种群增长可能通过减小体型和后外侧棘长度同时增强纤维素酶活性而增加。此外，轮虫后外侧棘的缺失是对母体氨应激的敏感反应。这些发现强调了母体环境压力是表型变异的重要来源，并强调了这些多重反应共同影响种群动态。