Intergenerational effects of paternal predator cue exposure on behavior, stress reactivity, and neural gene expression.

Predation threat impacts prey behavior, physiology, and fitness. Stress-mediated alterations to the paternal epigenome can be transmitted to offspring via the germline, conferring a potential advantage to offspring in predator-rich environments. While intergenerational epigenetic transmission of paternal experience has been demonstrated in mammals, how paternal predator exposure might alter offspring phenotypes across development is unstudied.