亚里士多德在他的著作《动物志》(Historia Animalium)和《生与灭》(De Generatione et Corruptione)中,提出了有关遗传和生殖的早期假设。他认为,男性在生殖中贡献的是“形式”或“活力”,而女性则提供了“物质”或“基质”。这种理论框架暗示了男性对后代的决定性影响,甚至可以通过之前的男性配偶来影响后代性状,这为后来“先父遗传”的形成埋下了观念的种子。
The transgenerational effect reported here is not a paternal effect because it affects non-offspring, but it can be regarded as a type of maternal effect whereby the phenotype of a female's previous mate influences her future offspring sired by another male. Interestingly, however, this effect occurs in a species in which the male transfers a tiny ejaculate that does not appear to contain any conventional form of nuptial gift (Bonduriansky & Head2007). Hence, this effect could be taxonomically widespread.这里报道的跨代效应并不是一种父源效应,因为它影响的并非亲生后代,但可以视作一种母源效应,即雌性之前配偶的表型影响了她与另一雄性所生育的未来后代。这个实验的结果其实可以解释,跟先父遗传也没什么关系。