Does trimethylamine induce life-history reactions in Daphnia?

Laboratory experiments were carried out to investigate life-history reactions of Daphnia to trimethylamine (TMA), a substance, which has recently been found to induce a similar phototactic reaction in Daphnia as fish kairomones. The effects of different treatments (control, fish kairomone and TMA) on the life-history traits of five clones of D. magna and one clone of D. galeata and D. hyalina, respectively, were studied. Only D. magna exhibited significant reactions to TMA and to fish kairomone. D. galeata showed no significant responses to either TMA or to fish kairomone. D. hyalina reacted to the fish treatment with two traits (size and number of eggs at maturity). The comparison of the reaction norms to TMA and fish kairomone demonstrated that the directions of some responses to both factors were similar but were different for others such as for size at maturity. TMA resulted in a larger size at maturity in D. magna, whereas fish kairomone had no significant influence on this trait. We, therefore, conclude that trimethylamine is not the primary causative chemical agent in fish induced life-history adaptations in Daphnia