Figure 3.

Mothers can control different aspects of offspring phenotype such as physiology and behaviour through hormonal levels. These modifications can have profound impacts on different fitness components that also affect the population dynamic. But it is important to conduct integrative studies to reveal the maternal hormonal effect by including environmental and inter-individual variability. Indeed, hormonal levels are known to be dependent on the environment such as the climate, the predation pressure and the pollution but the hormonal response will also depend on the individual characteristics. Binding globulins can regulate hormone availability to target tissues and the presence and the affinity of specific receptor for a hormone in the target tissue will modulate its effects.