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摘要: A comprehensive understanding of how maternal and environmental effects influence offspring phenotype and in-turn how offspring phenotype influences characters directly or indirectly related to fitness is necessary to evaluate current life-history theory. This dissertation represents an examination of the factors affecting hatchling body size and the way that these factors and body size affect post-hatching growth and survival. Specifically, the following hypotheses were tested;(1) clutch identity influences hatchling growth and survivorship independent of body size and incubation condition,(2) incubation of eggs on a wet substrate increase post-hatching growth and survivorship independent of body size and clutch identity,(3) larger hatchlings grow faster and experience lower mortality than smaller hatchlings, and (4) increased body size will be favored when there is greater intraspecific competition. To test these …