Data from: Offspring of older parents are smaller—but no less bilaterally symmetrical—than offspring of younger parents in the aquatic plant Lemna turionifera

Parental age effects are important because they may have feedback effects on the evolution of demographic trajectories and longevity. In addition to altering the timing of offspring life-history milestones, parental age effects can also have a negative impact on offspring size, with offspring of older parents being smaller than offspring of younger parents. Here, we consider the effects of advancing parental age on a different aspect of offspring morphology, body symmetry.

In this study, we followed all 403 offspring of 30 parents of a bilaterally symmetrical, clonally reproducing aquatic plant species, Lemna turionifera, to test the hypothesis that successive offspring become less symmetrical as their parent ages, using the ‘Continuous Symmetry Measure’ as an index. Although successive offspring of aging parents older than one week became smaller and smaller, we found scant evidence for any reduction in bilateral symmetry.

Usage notes

Ankutowicz_and_Laird_data Data from Ankutowicz and Laird, "Offspring of older parents are smaller—but no less bilaterally symmetrical—than offspring of younger parents in the aquatic plant Lemna turionifera"; see associated README file for column-header details. Ankutowicz_and_Laird_R_scripts R scripts accompanying Ankutowicz and Laird, "Offspring of older parents are smaller—but no less bilaterally symmetrical—than offspring of younger parents in the aquatic plant Lemna turionifera" otsu Matlab function for image thresholding. seg Matlab function for image segmentation. filt Matlab function for image filtering. floodfill Matlab function for flood-filling an image. bound Matlab function for boundary detection of an image. csm_mirror Matlab function for finding the continuous symmetry measure (CSM) associated with bilateral (/mirror) symmetry in an image.