Cassie Afseth, Jenn Hellmann and other lab members recently published a paper in Proc B showing that not only do stickleback attend to cues from their father, but fathers also attend to cues from their neighbors, resulting in vertical transmission of horizontally acquired cues of predation risk. The potential for simultaneous vertical and horizontal transmission has long been appreciated in the context of cultural evolution and epidemiology. This study shows that it could similarly be important for phenotypic plasticity and the maintenance of phenotypic variation. Click here for the paper.
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