expression would allow the daphnia to defend themselves and that an increase in growth would result in a larger investment in future offspring. subsequent generations exhibited a similar pattern, despite not being exposed to any predator cues, suggesting an inheritance of epigenetic expression factors. an organism's sensitivity to light during development could be useful in predicting what phenotype may be the most beneficial in the future based on the foliage of the mature organism. several species, including alligators and tortoises, have temperature-dependent sex determination, where the sex of the organism is dependent on the environmental temperature during a crucial thermosensitive period. an active area of research involves the mechanisms of temperature sex determination, which have been hypothesized to be associated with the methylation of specific genes.