1
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Bitter MC, Berardi S, Oken H, Huynh A, Lappo E, Schmidt P, Petrov DA. Continuously fluctuating selection reveals fine granularity of adaptation. Nature 2024:10.1038/s41586-024-07834-x. [PMID: 39143223 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07834-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 07/16/2024] [Indexed: 08/16/2024]
Abstract
Temporally fluctuating environmental conditions are a ubiquitous feature of natural habitats. Yet, how finely natural populations adaptively track fluctuating selection pressures via shifts in standing genetic variation is unknown1,2. Here we generated genome-wide allele frequency data every 1-2 generations from a genetically diverse population of Drosophila melanogaster in extensively replicated field mesocosms from late June to mid-December (a period of approximately 12 total generations). Adaptation throughout the fundamental ecological phases of population expansion, peak density and collapse was underpinned by extremely rapid, parallel changes in genomic variation across replicates. Yet, the dominant direction of selection fluctuated repeatedly, even within each of these ecological phases. Comparing patterns of change in allele frequency to an independent dataset procured from the same experimental system demonstrated that the targets of selection are predictable across years. In concert, our results reveal a fitness relevance of standing variation that is likely to be masked by inference approaches based on static population sampling or insufficiently resolved time-series data. We propose that such fine-scaled, temporally fluctuating selection may be an important force contributing to the maintenance of functional genetic variation in natural populations and an important stochastic force impacting genome-wide patterns of diversity at linked neutral sites, akin to genetic draft.
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Affiliation(s)
- M C Bitter
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
| | - S Berardi
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - H Oken
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - A Huynh
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Egor Lappo
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - P Schmidt
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
| | - D A Petrov
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, USA.
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2
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Spence-Jones HC, Pein CM, Shama LNS. Intergenerational effects of ocean temperature variation: Early life benefits are short-lived in threespine stickleback. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0307030. [PMID: 39093894 PMCID: PMC11296643 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/29/2024] [Accepted: 06/27/2024] [Indexed: 08/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Current climate change models predict an increase in temperature variability and extreme events such as heatwaves, and organisms need to cope with consequent changes to environmental variation. Non-genetic inheritance mechanisms can enable parental generations to prime their offspring's abilities to acclimate to environmental change-but they may also be deleterious. When parents are exposed to predictable environments, intergenerational plasticity can lead to better offspring trait performance in matching environments. Alternatively, parents exposed to variable or unpredictable environments may use plastic bet-hedging strategies to adjust the phenotypic variance among offspring. Here, we used a model species, the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), to test whether putatively adaptive intergenerational effects can occur in response to shifts in environmental variation as well as to shifts in environmental mean, and whether parents employ plastic bet-hedging strategies in response to increasing environmental variation. We used a full-factorial, split-clutch experiment with parents and offspring exposed to three temperature regimes: constant, natural variation, and increased variation. We show that within-generation exposure to increased temperature variation reduces growth of offspring, but having parents that were exposed to natural temperature variation during gametogenesis may offset some early-life negative growth effects. However, these mitigating intergenerational effects do not appear to persist later in life. We found no indication that stickleback mothers plastically altered offspring phenotypic variance (egg size or clutch size) in response to temperature variation. However, lower inter-individual variance of juvenile fish morphology in offspring of increased variation parents may imply the presence of conservative bet-hedging strategies in natural populations. Overall, in our experiment, parental exposure to temperature variation had limited effects on offspring fitness-related traits. Natural levels of environmental variation promoted a potentially adaptive intergenerational response in early life development, but under more challenging conditions associated with increased environmental variation, the effect was lost.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helen Clare Spence-Jones
- Coastal Ecology Section, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, List, Germany
| | - Carla M. Pein
- Coastal Ecology Section, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, List, Germany
| | - Lisa N. S. Shama
- Coastal Ecology Section, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, List, Germany
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3
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Romero-Mujalli D, Fuchs LIR, Haase M, Hildebrandt JP, Weissing FJ, Revilla TA. Emergence of phenotypic plasticity through epigenetic mechanisms. Evol Lett 2024; 8:561-574. [PMID: 39100234 PMCID: PMC11291936 DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2023] [Revised: 02/29/2024] [Accepted: 03/04/2024] [Indexed: 08/06/2024] Open
Abstract
Plasticity is found in all domains of life and is particularly relevant when populations experience variable environmental conditions. Traditionally, evolutionary models of plasticity are non-mechanistic: they typically view reactions norms as the target of selection, without considering the underlying genetics explicitly. Consequently, there have been difficulties in understanding the emergence of plasticity, and in explaining its limits and costs. In this paper, we offer a novel mechanistic approximation for the emergence and evolution of plasticity. We simulate random "epigenetic mutations" in the genotype-phenotype mapping, of the kind enabled by DNA-methylations/demethylations. The frequency of epigenetic mutations at loci affecting the phenotype is sensitive to organism stress (trait-environment mismatch), but is also genetically determined and evolvable. Thus, the "random motion" of epigenetic markers enables developmental learning-like behaviors that can improve adaptation within the limits imposed by the genotypes. However, with random motion being "goal-less," this mechanism is also vulnerable to developmental noise leading to maladaptation. Our individual-based simulations show that epigenetic mutations can hide alleles that are temporarily unfavorable, thus enabling cryptic genetic variation. These alleles can be advantageous at later times, under regimes of environmental change, in spite of the accumulation of genetic loads. Simulations also demonstrate that plasticity is favored by natural selection in constant environments, but more under periodic environmental change. Plasticity also evolves under directional environmental change as long as the pace of change is not too fast and costs are low.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Romero-Mujalli
- Zoological Institute and Museum, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
- Institute for Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Laura I R Fuchs
- Zoological Institute and Museum, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Martin Haase
- Zoological Institute and Museum, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | | | - Franz J Weissing
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Tomás A Revilla
- Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Biology Centre, Institute of Entomology, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
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4
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Suding KN, Collins CG, Hallett LM, Larios L, Brigham LM, Dudney J, Farrer EC, Larson JE, Shackelford N, Spasojevic MJ. Biodiversity in changing environments: An external-driver internal-topology framework to guide intervention. Ecology 2024; 105:e4322. [PMID: 39014865 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2023] [Revised: 01/15/2024] [Accepted: 03/08/2024] [Indexed: 07/18/2024]
Abstract
Accompanying the climate crisis is the more enigmatic biodiversity crisis. Rapid reorganization of biodiversity due to global environmental change has defied prediction and tested the basic tenets of conservation and restoration. Conceptual and practical innovation is needed to support decision making in the face of these unprecedented shifts. Critical questions include: How can we generalize biodiversity change at the community level? When are systems able to reorganize and maintain integrity, and when does abiotic change result in collapse or restructuring? How does this understanding provide a template to guide when and how to intervene in conservation and restoration? To this end, we frame changes in community organization as the modulation of external abiotic drivers on the internal topology of species interactions, using plant-plant interactions in terrestrial communities as a starting point. We then explore how this framing can help translate available data on species abundance and trait distributions to corresponding decisions in management. Given the expectation that community response and reorganization are highly complex, the external-driver internal-topology (EDIT) framework offers a way to capture general patterns of biodiversity that can help guide resilience and adaptation in changing environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katharine N Suding
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
| | - Courtney G Collins
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Biodiversity Research Centre, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Lauren M Hallett
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Department of Biology and Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
| | - Loralee Larios
- Department of Botany & Plant Sciences, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California, USA
| | - Laurel M Brigham
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, California, USA
| | - Joan Dudney
- Environmental Studies Program, Santa Barbara, California, USA
- Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA
| | - Emily C Farrer
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
| | - Julie E Larson
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- USDA Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, Burns, Oregon, USA
| | - Nancy Shackelford
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Marko J Spasojevic
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California, USA
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5
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Thierry M, Cote J, Bestion E, Legrand D, Clobert J, Jacob S. The interplay between abiotic and biotic factors in dispersal decisions in metacommunities. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2024; 379:20230137. [PMID: 38913055 PMCID: PMC11391301 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0137] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2023] [Revised: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 03/01/2024] [Indexed: 06/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Suitable conditions for species to survive and reproduce constitute their ecological niche, which is built by abiotic conditions and interactions with conspecifics and heterospecifics. Organisms should ideally assess and use information about all these environmental dimensions to adjust their dispersal decisions depending on their own internal conditions. Dispersal plasticity is often considered through its dependence on abiotic conditions or conspecific density and, to a lesser extent, with reference to the effects of interactions with heterospecifics, potentially leading to misinterpretation of dispersal drivers. Here, we first review the evidence for the effects of and the potential interplays between abiotic factors, biotic interactions with conspecifics and heterospecifics and phenotype on dispersal decisions. We then present an experimental test of these potential interplays, investigating the effects of density and interactions with conspecifics and heterospecifics on temperature-dependent dispersal in microcosms of Tetrahymena ciliates. We found significant differences in dispersal rates depending on the temperature, density and presence of another strain or species. However, the presence and density of conspecifics and heterospecifics had no effects on the thermal-dependency of dispersal. We discuss the causes and consequences of the (lack of) interplay between the different environmental dimensions and the phenotype for metacommunity assembly and dynamics. This article is part of the theme issue 'Diversity-dependence of dispersal: interspecific interactions determine spatial dynamics'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mélanie Thierry
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR 2029, CNRS , Moulis 09200, France
| | - Julien Cote
- Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement (CRBE), UMR 5300 CNRS-IRD-TINP-UT3 Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, Bât. 4R1, 118 route de Narbonne , Toulouse Cedex 9 31062, France
| | - Elvire Bestion
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR 2029, CNRS , Moulis 09200, France
| | - Delphine Legrand
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR 2029, CNRS , Moulis 09200, France
| | - Jean Clobert
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR 2029, CNRS , Moulis 09200, France
| | - Staffan Jacob
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR 2029, CNRS , Moulis 09200, France
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6
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Duvane JA, Dupont S. Drivers of biological response to fluctuating seawater ph conditions in sea urchin echinus esculentus larvae. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2024; 935:173383. [PMID: 38777045 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173383] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2024] [Revised: 05/13/2024] [Accepted: 05/18/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024]
Abstract
A large body of evidence is documenting the impact of reduced pH on marine species and ecosystems. This information is used to infer the present and future impacts of ocean acidification. However, a vast majority of the studies were performed using constant pH and the high level of pH variability experienced by marine organisms on the coastal zone was often overlooked. Recent studies highlight the key role of this variability in driving biological response to pH as well as species sensitivity to ocean acidification. For example, it was hypothesized that because of local adaptation, the extreme of the present range of pH variability is a good predictor for local biological thresholds. Using a complex experimental design, we investigated what part of the pH variability is driving the biological response of the sea urchin Echinus esculentus larvae. Comparing stable (pH 8.13, 7.82, 7.53) and fluctuating treatments (12 h at pH 8.13 and 12 h at pH 7.53) following natural or inverted diurnal cycles, we were able to show that (i) under constant conditions, low pH deviating from the present range of natural variability had a negative effect on larval growth rate and calcification; (ii) under fluctuating conditions, a desynchronization of the pH variation with the photoperiod led to decreased larval growth rate and calcification; (iii) overall, larval fitness (survival, growth and calcification) was higher under fluctuating conditions as compared to constant. While these data do not support the hypothesis that the minimum pH is the main driver of the biological response, they provide evidence of adaptation to variability in a coastal species with associated a cost of plasticity but not a cost of canalization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jossias Alberto Duvane
- Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Fiskebäckskil 45178, Sweden; Department of Biological Sciences, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo CP257, Mozambique.
| | - Sam Dupont
- Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Fiskebäckskil 45178, Sweden; IAEA Marine Environment Laboratories, Radioecology Laboratory, 4 Quai Antoine 1er, 98000, Monaco
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7
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Ostovar G, Boedicker JQ. Phenotypic memory in quorum sensing. PLoS Comput Biol 2024; 20:e1011696. [PMID: 38976753 PMCID: PMC11257393 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011696] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2023] [Revised: 07/18/2024] [Accepted: 06/19/2024] [Indexed: 07/10/2024] Open
Abstract
Quorum sensing (QS) is a regulatory mechanism used by bacteria to coordinate group behavior in response to high cell densities. During QS, cells monitor the concentration of external signals, known as autoinducers, as a proxy for cell density. QS often involves positive feedback loops, leading to the upregulation of genes associated with QS signal production and detection. This results in distinct steady-state concentrations of QS-related molecules in QS-ON and QS-OFF states. Due to the slow decay rates of biomolecules such as proteins, even after removal of the initial stimuli, cells can retain elevated levels of QS-associated biomolecules for extended periods of time. This persistence of biomolecules after the removal of the initial stimuli has the potential to impact the response to future stimuli, indicating a memory of past exposure. This phenomenon, which is a consequence of the carry-over of biomolecules rather than genetic inheritance, is known as "phenotypic" memory. This theoretical study aims to investigate the presence of phenotypic memory in QS and the conditions that influence this memory. Numerical simulations based on ordinary differential equations and analytical modeling were used to study gene expression in response to sudden changes in cell density and extracellular signal concentrations. The model examined the effect of various cellular parameters on the strength of QS memory and the impact on gene regulatory dynamics. The findings revealed that QS memory has a transient effect on the expression of QS-responsive genes. These consequences of QS memory depend strongly on how cell density was perturbed, as well as various cellular parameters, including the Fold Change in the expression of QS-regulated genes, the autoinducer synthesis rate, the autoinducer threshold required for activation, and the cell growth rate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ghazaleh Ostovar
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - James Q. Boedicker
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
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8
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Ruttenberg DM, Levin SA, Wingreen NS, Kocher SD. Variation in season length and development time is sufficient to drive the emergence and coexistence of social and solitary behavioral strategies. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.06.18.599518. [PMID: 38948882 PMCID: PMC11212982 DOI: 10.1101/2024.06.18.599518] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/02/2024]
Abstract
Season length and its associated variables can influence the expression of social behaviors, including the occurrence of eusociality in insects. Eusociality can vary widely across environmental gradients, both within and between different species. Numerous theoretical models have been developed to examine the life history traits that underlie the emergence and maintenance of eusociality, yet the impact of seasonality on this process is largely uncharacterized. Here, we present a theoretical model that incorporates season length and offspring development time into a single, individual-focused model to examine how these factors can shape the costs and benefits of social living. We find that longer season lengths and faster brood development times are sufficient to favor the emergence and maintenance of a social strategy, while shorter seasons favor a solitary one. We also identify a range of season lengths where social and solitary strategies can coexist. Moreover, our theoretical predictions are well-matched to the natural history and behavior of two flexibly-eusocial bee species, suggesting our model can make realistic predictions about the evolution of different social strategies. Broadly, this work reveals the crucial role that environmental conditions can have in shaping social behavior and its evolution and underscores the need for further models that explicitly incorporate such variation to study evolutionary trajectories of eusociality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dee M Ruttenberg
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
| | - Simon A Levin
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
| | - Ned S Wingreen
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University
- Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
| | - Sarah D Kocher
- Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
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9
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van den Berg P, Vu T, Molleman L. Unpredictable benefits of social information can lead to the evolution of individual differences in social learning. Nat Commun 2024; 15:5138. [PMID: 38879619 PMCID: PMC11180142 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49530-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2023] [Accepted: 06/07/2024] [Indexed: 06/19/2024] Open
Abstract
Human ecological success is often attributed to our capacity for social learning, which facilitates the spread of adaptive behaviours through populations. All humans rely on social learning to acquire culture, but there is substantial variation across societies, between individuals and over developmental time. However, it is unclear why these differences exist. Here, we present an evolutionary model showing that individual variation in social learning can emerge if the benefits of social learning are unpredictable. Unpredictability selects for flexible developmental programmes that allow individuals to update their reliance on social learning based on previous experiences. This developmental flexibility, in turn, causes some individuals in a population to end up consistently relying more heavily on social learning than others. We demonstrate this core evolutionary mechanism across three scenarios of increasing complexity, investigating the impact of different sources of uncertainty about the usefulness of social learning. Our results show how evolution can shape how individuals learn to learn from others, with potentially profound effects on cultural diversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pieter van den Berg
- KU Leuven, Department of Biology, Leuven, Belgium.
- KU Leuven, Department of Microbial and Molecular Systems, Leuven, Belgium.
| | - TuongVan Vu
- Department of Clinical, Neuro-, & Developmental Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Lucas Molleman
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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10
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Travis J, Trexler JC. Phenotypic plasticity in the sailfin molly III: Geographic variation in reaction norms of growth and maturation to temperature and salinity. Ecol Evol 2024; 14:e11482. [PMID: 38826157 PMCID: PMC11140554 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.11482] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2024] [Revised: 05/09/2024] [Accepted: 05/13/2024] [Indexed: 06/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of a single genotype to produce different phenotypes under different environmental conditions, plays a profound role in several areas of evolutionary biology. One important role is as an adaptation to a variable environment. While plasticity is extremely well documented in response to many environmental factors, there is controversy over how much of that plasticity is adaptive. Evidence is also mixed over how often conspecific populations display qualitative differences in the nature of plasticity. We present data on the reaction norms of growth and maturation to variation in temperature and salinity in male and female sailfin mollies (Poecilia latipinna) from three locally adjacent populations from South Carolina (SC). We compare these reaction norms to those previously reported in locally adjacent populations from north Florida (NF). In general, patterns of plasticity in fish from SC were similar to those in fish from NF. The magnitude of plasticity differed; fish from SC displayed less plasticity than fish from NF. This was because SC fish grew faster and matured earlier at the lower temperatures and salinities compared to NF fish. This is a countergradient pattern of variation, in which SC fish grew faster and matured earlier in conditions that would otherwise slow growth and delay maturity. Among fish from both regions, males were much less plastic than females, especially for length at maturity. While there was no detectable heterogeneity among populations from NF, males from one of the SC populations, which is furthest from the other two, displayed a qualitatively different response in age at maturity to temperature variation than did males from the other two SC populations. The pattern of population variation in plasticity within and among regions suggests that gene flow, which diminishes with distance in sailfin mollies, plays a critical role in constraining divergence in norms of reaction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph Travis
- Department of Biological ScienceFlorida State UniversityTallahasseeFloridaUSA
| | - Joel C. Trexler
- Department of Biological ScienceFlorida State UniversityTallahasseeFloridaUSA
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11
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Jacob S, Dupont L, Haegeman B, Thierry M, Campana JLM, Legrand D, Cote J, Raffard A. Phenotypic plasticity and the effects of thermal fluctuations on specialists and generalists. Proc Biol Sci 2024; 291:20240256. [PMID: 38889786 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0256] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2024] [Accepted: 04/17/2024] [Indexed: 06/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Classical theories predict that relatively constant environments should generally favour specialists, while fluctuating environments should be selected for generalists. However, theoretical and empirical results have pointed out that generalist organisms might, on the contrary, perform poorly under fluctuations. In particular, if generalism is underlaid by phenotypic plasticity, performance of generalists should be modulated by the temporal characteristics of environmental fluctuations. Here, we used experiments in microcosms of Tetrahymena thermophila ciliates and a mathematical model to test whether the period or autocorrelation of thermal fluctuations mediate links between the level of generalism and the performance of organisms under fluctuations. In the experiment, thermal fluctuations consistently impeded performance compared with constant conditions. However, the intensity of this effect depended on the level of generalism: while the more specialist strains performed better under fast or negatively autocorrelated fluctuations, plastic generalists performed better under slow or positively autocorrelated fluctuations. Our model suggests that these effects of fluctuations on organisms' performance may result from a time delay in the expression of plasticity, restricting its benefits to slow enough fluctuations. This study points out the need to further investigate the temporal dynamics of phenotypic plasticity to better predict its fitness consequences under environmental fluctuations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Staffan Jacob
- Station d'Écologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, Moulis 09200, France
| | - Léonard Dupont
- Station d'Écologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, Moulis 09200, France
| | - Bart Haegeman
- CNRS/Sorbonne Université, UMR7621 Laboratoire d'Océanographie Microbienne, Banyuls-sur-Mer, France
| | - Mélanie Thierry
- Station d'Écologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, Moulis 09200, France
| | - Julie L M Campana
- Station d'Écologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, Moulis 09200, France
| | - Delphine Legrand
- Station d'Écologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, Moulis 09200, France
| | - Julien Cote
- Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement (CRBE), UMR 5300, CNRS-IRD-TINP-UT3, Toulouse 31062 Cedex 9, France
| | - Allan Raffard
- Université catholique de Louvain, Earth and Life Institute, Biodiversity Research Centre, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
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12
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Rosenbaum S, Malani A, Lea AJ, Tung J, Alberts SC, Archie EA. Testing frameworks for early life effects: the developmental constraints and adaptive response hypotheses do not explain key fertility outcomes in wild female baboons. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.04.23.590627. [PMID: 38712305 PMCID: PMC11071398 DOI: 10.1101/2024.04.23.590627] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/08/2024]
Abstract
In evolutionary ecology, two classes of explanations are frequently invoked to explain "early life effects" on adult outcomes. Developmental constraints (DC) explanations contend that costs of early adversity arise from limitations adversity places on optimal development. Adaptive response (AR) hypotheses propose that later life outcomes will be worse when early and adult environments are poorly "matched." Here, we use recently proposed mathematical definitions for these hypotheses and a quadratic-regression based approach to test the long-term consequences of variation in developmental environments on fertility in wild baboons. We evaluate whether low rainfall and/or dominance rank during development predict three female fertility measures in adulthood, and whether any observed relationships are consistent with DC and/or AR. Neither rainfall during development nor the difference between rainfall in development and adulthood predicted any fertility measures. Females who were low-ranking during development had an elevated risk of losing infants later in life, and greater change in rank between development and adulthood predicted greater risk of infant loss. However, both effects were statistically marginal and consistent with alternative explanations, including adult environmental quality effects. Consequently, our data do not provide compelling support for either of these common explanations for the evolution of early life effects.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Anup Malani
- University of Chicago Law School & National Bureau of Economic Research
| | - Amanda J Lea
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University
| | - Jenny Tung
- Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary, Anthropology; Departments of Evolutionary Anthropology & Biology, Duke University
| | - Susan C Alberts
- Departments of Evolutionary Anthropology & Biology, Duke University
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13
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Zeng ZA, Wolkovich EM. Weak evidence of provenance effects in spring phenology across Europe and North America. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2024. [PMID: 38494441 DOI: 10.1111/nph.19674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/26/2023] [Accepted: 02/27/2024] [Indexed: 03/19/2024]
Abstract
Forecasting the biological impacts of climate change requires understanding how species respond to warmer temperatures through interannual flexible variation vs through adaptation to local conditions. Yet, we often lack this information entirely or find conflicting evidence across studies, which is the case for spring phenology. We synthesized common garden studies across Europe and North America that reported spring event dates for a mix of angiosperm and gymnosperm tree species in the northern hemisphere, capturing data from 384 North American and 101 European provenances (i.e. populations) with observations from 1962 to 2019, alongside autumn event data when provided. Across continents, we found no evidence of provenance effects in spring phenology, but strong clines with latitude and mean annual temperature in autumn. These effects, however, appeared to diverge by continent and species type (gymnosperm vs angiosperm), with particularly pronounced clines in North America in autumn events. Our results suggest flexible, likely plastic responses, in spring phenology with warming, and potential limits - at least in the short term - due to provenance effects for autumn phenology. They also highlight that, after over 250 yr of common garden studies on tree phenology, we still lack a holistic predictive model of clines across species and phenological events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ziyun Alina Zeng
- Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
| | - Elizabeth M Wolkovich
- Forest & Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
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14
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Bitter MC, Berardi S, Oken H, Huynh A, Schmidt P, Petrov DA. Continuously fluctuating selection reveals extreme granularity and parallelism of adaptive tracking. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.10.16.562586. [PMID: 37904939 PMCID: PMC10614893 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.16.562586] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/01/2023]
Abstract
Temporally fluctuating environmental conditions are a ubiquitous feature of natural habitats. Yet, how finely natural populations adaptively track fluctuating selection pressures via shifts in standing genetic variation is unknown. We generated high-frequency, genome-wide allele frequency data from a genetically diverse population of Drosophila melanogaster in extensively replicated field mesocosms from late June to mid-December, a period of ∼12 generations. Adaptation throughout the fundamental ecological phases of population expansion, peak density, and collapse was underpinned by extremely rapid, parallel changes in genomic variation across replicates. Yet, the dominant direction of selection fluctuated repeatedly, even within each of these ecological phases. Comparing patterns of allele frequency change to an independent dataset procured from the same experimental system demonstrated that the targets of selection are predictable across years. In concert, our results reveal fitness-relevance of standing variation that is likely to be masked by inference approaches based on static population sampling, or insufficiently resolved time-series data. We propose such fine-scaled temporally fluctuating selection may be an important force maintaining functional genetic variation in natural populations and an important stochastic force affecting levels of standing genetic variation genome-wide.
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15
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Gvoždík L. Individual variation in thermally induced plasticity of metabolic rates: ecological and evolutionary implications for a warming world. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2024; 379:20220494. [PMID: 38186270 PMCID: PMC10772608 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2023] [Accepted: 09/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Energy metabolism is a fundamental property of life providing the energy for all processes and functions within an organism. As it is temperature-dependent, it mediates the effects of changing climate on ectotherm fitness and population dynamics. Though resting metabolic rate is a highly labile trait, part of its variation is individually consistent. Recent findings show that resting metabolic rate contains consistent variation not only in the elevations (intercepts) but also in the slopes of individual thermal dependence curves, challenging the thermal dependence assumption for this trait in several ectotherm taxa. I argue that among-individual variation in thermal metabolic curves represents a previously undetected component of ectotherm response to climate change, potentially affecting their adaptive capacity and population resilience under increasing stochasticity of thermal environment. Future studies need to examine not only the amount of among-individual variation in thermal metabolic curves across phylogenetic contexts but also other aspects concerning its mechanisms and adaptive significance to improve predictions about the impact of climate change on ectotherm population dynamics. This article is part of the theme issue 'The evolutionary significance of variation in metabolic rates'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lumír Gvoždík
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Květná 8, 60300 Brno, Czech Republic
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16
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Nunez JCB, Lenhart BA, Bangerter A, Murray CS, Mazzeo GR, Yu Y, Nystrom TL, Tern C, Erickson PA, Bergland AO. A cosmopolitan inversion facilitates seasonal adaptation in overwintering Drosophila. Genetics 2024; 226:iyad207. [PMID: 38051996 PMCID: PMC10847723 DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyad207] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2023] [Accepted: 11/28/2023] [Indexed: 12/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Fluctuations in the strength and direction of natural selection through time are a ubiquitous feature of life on Earth. One evolutionary outcome of such fluctuations is adaptive tracking, wherein populations rapidly adapt from standing genetic variation. In certain circumstances, adaptive tracking can lead to the long-term maintenance of functional polymorphism despite allele frequency change due to selection. Although adaptive tracking is likely a common process, we still have a limited understanding of aspects of its genetic architecture and its strength relative to other evolutionary forces such as drift. Drosophila melanogaster living in temperate regions evolve to track seasonal fluctuations and are an excellent system to tackle these gaps in knowledge. By sequencing orchard populations collected across multiple years, we characterized the genomic signal of seasonal demography and identified that the cosmopolitan inversion In(2L)t facilitates seasonal adaptive tracking and shows molecular footprints of selection. A meta-analysis of phenotypic studies shows that seasonal loci within In(2L)t are associated with behavior, life history, physiology, and morphological traits. We identify candidate loci and experimentally link them to phenotype. Our work contributes to our general understanding of fluctuating selection and highlights the evolutionary outcome and dynamics of contemporary selection on inversions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joaquin C B Nunez
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
- Department of Biology, University of Vermont, 109 Carrigan Drive, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
| | - Benedict A Lenhart
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
| | - Alyssa Bangerter
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
| | - Connor S Murray
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
| | - Giovanni R Mazzeo
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
| | - Yang Yu
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
| | - Taylor L Nystrom
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
| | - Courtney Tern
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
| | - Priscilla A Erickson
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
- Department of Biology, University of Richmond, 138 UR Drive, Richmond, VA 23173, USA
| | - Alan O Bergland
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, 90 Geldard Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22901, USA
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17
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Kar F, Nakagawa S, Noble DWA. Heritability and developmental plasticity of growth in an oviparous lizard. Heredity (Edinb) 2024; 132:67-76. [PMID: 37968348 PMCID: PMC10844306 DOI: 10.1038/s41437-023-00660-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2022] [Revised: 10/28/2023] [Accepted: 10/29/2023] [Indexed: 11/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Selective processes act on phenotypic variation although the evolutionary potential of a trait relies on the underlying heritable variation. Developmental plasticity is an important source of phenotypic variation, but it can also promote changes in genetic variation, yet we have a limited understanding of how they are both impacted. Here, we quantified the influence of developmental temperature on growth in delicate skinks (Lampropholis delicata) and partitioned total phenotypic variance using an animal model fitted with a genomic relatedness matrix. We measured mass for 261 individuals (nhot = 125, ncold = 136) over 16 months (nobservations = 3002) and estimated heritability and maternal effects over time. Our results show that lizards reared in cold developmental temperatures had consistently higher mass across development compared to lizards that were reared in hot developmental temperatures. However, developmental temperature did not impact the rate of growth. On average, additive genetic variance, maternal effects and heritability were higher in the hot developmental temperature treatment; however, these differences were not statistically significant. Heritability increased with age, whereas maternal effects decreased upon hatching but increased again at a later age, which could be driven by social competition or intrinsic changes in the expression of variation as an individual's growth. Our work suggests that the evolutionary potential of growth is complex, age-dependent and not overtly affected by extremes in natural nest temperatures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fonti Kar
- School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ecology and Evolution Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Shinichi Nakagawa
- School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ecology and Evolution Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Diabetes and Metabolism Division, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, 384 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW, 2010, Australia
| | - Daniel W A Noble
- School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ecology and Evolution Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
- Division of Ecology and Evolution, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
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18
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Weissman MR, Raynes Y, Weinreich DM. Beyond the (geometric) mean: stochastic models undermine deterministic predictions of bet hedger evolution. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.07.11.548608. [PMID: 37503082 PMCID: PMC10369953 DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.11.548608] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
Bet hedging is a ubiquitous strategy for risk reduction in the face of unpredictable environmental change where a lineage lowers its variance in fitness across environments at the expense of also lowering its arithmetic mean fitness. Classically, the benefit of bet hedging has been quantified using geometric mean fitness (GMF); bet hedging is expected to evolve if and only if it has a higher GMF than the wild-type. We build upon previous research on the effect of incorporating stochasticity in phenotypic distribution, environment, and reproduction to investigate the extent to which these sources of stochasticity will impact the evolution of real-world bet hedging traits. We utilize both individual-based simulations and Markov chain numerics to demonstrate that modeling stochasticity can alter the sign of selection for the bet hedger compared to deterministic predictions. We find that bet hedging can be deleterious at small population sizes and beneficial at larger population sizes. This non-monotonic dependence of the sign of selection on population size, known as sign inversion, exists across parameter space for both conservative and diversified bet hedgers. We apply our model to published data of bet hedging strategies to show that sign inversion exists for biologically relevant parameters in two study systems: Papaver dubium, an annual poppy with variable germination phenology, and Salmonella typhimurium, a pathogenic bacteria that exhibits antibiotic persistence. Taken together, our results suggest that GMF is not enough to predict when bet hedging is adaptive.
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19
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Kozielska M, Weissing FJ. A neural network model for the evolution of learning in changing environments. PLoS Comput Biol 2024; 20:e1011840. [PMID: 38289971 PMCID: PMC10857588 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011840] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2023] [Revised: 02/09/2024] [Accepted: 01/18/2024] [Indexed: 02/01/2024] Open
Abstract
Learning from past experience is an important adaptation and theoretical models may help to understand its evolution. Many of the existing models study simple phenotypes and do not consider the mechanisms underlying learning while the more complex neural network models often make biologically unrealistic assumptions and rarely consider evolutionary questions. Here, we present a novel way of modelling learning using small neural networks and a simple, biology-inspired learning algorithm. Learning affects only part of the network, and it is governed by the difference between expectations and reality. We use this model to study the evolution of learning under various environmental conditions and different scenarios for the trade-off between exploration (learning) and exploitation (foraging). Efficient learning readily evolves in our individual-based simulations. However, in line with previous studies, the evolution of learning is less likely in relatively constant environments, where genetic adaptation alone can lead to efficient foraging, or in short-lived organisms that cannot afford to spend much of their lifetime on exploration. Once learning does evolve, the characteristics of the learning strategy (i.e. the duration of the learning period and the learning rate) and the average performance after learning are surprisingly little affected by the frequency and/or magnitude of environmental change. In contrast, an organism's lifespan and the distribution of resources in the environment have a clear effect on the evolved learning strategy: a shorter lifespan or a broader resource distribution lead to fewer learning episodes and larger learning rates. Interestingly, a longer learning period does not always lead to better performance, indicating that the evolved neural networks differ in the effectiveness of learning. Overall, however, we show that a biologically inspired, yet relatively simple, learning mechanism can evolve to lead to an efficient adaptation in a changing environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Magdalena Kozielska
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Franz J. Weissing
- Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
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20
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Dupont L, Thierry M, Zinger L, Legrand D, Jacob S. Beyond reaction norms: the temporal dynamics of phenotypic plasticity. Trends Ecol Evol 2024; 39:41-51. [PMID: 37718228 DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2023.08.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2023] [Revised: 08/21/2023] [Accepted: 08/24/2023] [Indexed: 09/19/2023]
Abstract
Phenotypic plasticity can allow organisms to cope with environmental changes. Although reaction norms are commonly used to quantify plasticity along gradients of environmental conditions, they often miss the temporal dynamics of phenotypic change, especially the speed at which it occurs. Here, we argue that studying the rate of phenotypic plasticity is a crucial step to quantify and understand its adaptiveness. Iteratively measuring plastic traits allows us to describe the actual dynamics of phenotypic changes and avoid quantifying reaction norms at times that do not truly reflect the organism's capacity for plasticity. Integrating the temporal component in how we describe, quantify, and conceptualise phenotypic plasticity can change our understanding of its diversity, evolution, and consequences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Léonard Dupont
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, 09200, Moulis, France.
| | - Mélanie Thierry
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, 09200, Moulis, France
| | - Lucie Zinger
- Institut de Biologie de l'ENS (IBENS), Département de Biologie, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS, INSERM, Université PSL, 75005 Paris, France; Naturalis Biodiversity Center, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Delphine Legrand
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, 09200, Moulis, France
| | - Staffan Jacob
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et Expérimentale, UAR2029, CNRS, 09200, Moulis, France
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21
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Kulbaba MW, Yoko Z, Hamilton JA. Chasing the fitness optimum: temporal variation in the genetic and environmental expression of life-history traits for a perennial plant. ANNALS OF BOTANY 2023; 132:1191-1204. [PMID: 37493041 PMCID: PMC10902883 DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcad100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 07/27/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS The ability of plants to track shifting fitness optima is crucial within the context of global change, where increasing environmental extremes may have dramatic consequences for life history, fitness, and ultimately population persistence. However, tracking changing conditions relies on the relationship between genetic and environmental variance, where selection may favour plasticity, the evolution of genetic differences, or both depending on the spatial and temporal scale of environmental heterogeneity. METHODS Over three years, we compared the genetic and environmental components of phenological and life-history variation in a common environment for the spring perennial Geum triflorum. Populations were sourced from alvar habitats that exhibit extreme but predictable annual flood-desiccation cycles and prairie habitats that exhibit similar but less predictable variation in water availability. KEY RESULTS Heritability was generally higher for early life-history (emergence probability) relative to later life-history traits (total seed mass), indicating that traits associated with establishment are under stronger genetic control relative to later life-history fitness expressions, where plasticity may play a larger role. This pattern was particularly notable in seeds sourced from environmentally extreme but predictable alvar habitats relative to less predictable prairie environments. Fitness landscapes based on seed source origin, largely characterized by varying water availability and flower production, described selection as the degree of maladaptation of seed source environment relative to the prairie common garden environment. Plants from alvar populations were consistently closer to the fitness optimum across all years. Annually, the breadth of the fitness optimum expanded primarily along a moisture gradient, with inclusion of more populations onto the expanding optimum. CONCLUSIONS These results highlight the importance of temporally and spatially varying selection in life-history evolution, indicating plasticity may become a primary mechanism needed to track fitness for later life-history events within perennial systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mason W Kulbaba
- Our Lady of the Lake University, Department of Mathematics and Science, San Antonio, TX 78207, USA
- St Mary’s University, Biology Area, 14500 Bannister Road SE, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2X 1Z4
| | - Zebadiah Yoko
- North Dakota State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Fargo, ND 58102, USA
| | - Jill A Hamilton
- North Dakota State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Fargo, ND 58102, USA
- Pennsylvania State University, Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, University Park, PA 16801, USA
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22
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Lamers KP, Nilsson JÅ, Nicolaus M, Both C. Adaptation to climate change through dispersal and inherited timing in an avian migrant. Nat Ecol Evol 2023; 7:1869-1877. [PMID: 37710043 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02191-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2023] [Accepted: 08/04/2023] [Indexed: 09/16/2023]
Abstract
Many organisms fail to adjust their phenology sufficiently to climate change. Studies have concentrated on adaptive responses within localities, but little is known about how latitudinal dispersal enhances evolutionary potential. Rapid adaptation is expected if dispersers from lower latitudes have improved synchrony to northern conditions, thereby gain fitness and introduce genotypes on which selection acts. Here we provide experimental evidence that dispersal in an avian migrant enables rapid evolutionary adaptation. We translocated Dutch female pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) and eggs to Sweden, where breeding phenology is ~15 days later. Translocated females bred earlier, and their fitness was 2.5 times higher than local Swedish flycatchers. We show that between-population variation in timing traits is highly heritable, and hence immigration of southern genotypes promotes the necessary evolutionary response. We conclude that studies on adaptation to large-scale environmental change should not just focus on plasticity and evolution based on standing genetic variation but should also include phenotype-habitat matching through dispersal as a viable route to adjust.
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Affiliation(s)
- Koosje P Lamers
- Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
| | - Jan-Åke Nilsson
- Department of Biology, Evolutionary Ecology Lab, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Marion Nicolaus
- Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Christiaan Both
- Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
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23
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Araya-Ajoy YG, Dingemanse NJ, Westneat DF, Wright J. The evolutionary ecology of variation in labile traits: selection on its among- and within-individual components. Evolution 2023; 77:2246-2256. [PMID: 37490354 DOI: 10.1093/evolut/qpad136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2023] [Revised: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 07/21/2023] [Indexed: 07/27/2023]
Abstract
Closer integration between behavioral ecology and quantitative genetics has resulted in a recent increase in studies partitioning sources of variation in labile traits. Repeatable between-individual differences are commonly documented, and their existence is generally explained using adaptive arguments, implying that selection has shaped variation at the among- and within-individual level. However, predicting the expected pattern of non-adaptive phenotypic variation around an optimal phenotypic value is difficult, hampering our ability to provide quantitative assessments of the adaptive nature of observed patterns of phenotypic variation within a population. We argue that estimating the strength of selection on trait variation among and within individuals provides a way to test adaptive theory concerned with phenotypic variation. To achieve this aim, we describe a nonlinear selection analysis that enables the study of the selective pressures on trait means and their among- and within-individual variation. By describing an integrative approach for studying the strength of selection on phenotypic variation at different levels, we hope to stimulate empirical studies investigating the ecological factors that can shape the repeatability, heritability, and coefficients of variation of labile and other repeatedly expressed traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yimen G Araya-Ajoy
- Department of Biology, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics (CBD), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
| | - Niels J Dingemanse
- Behavioural Ecology, Department of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Planegg-Martinsried, Germany
| | - David F Westneat
- Department of Biology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States
| | - Jonathan Wright
- Department of Biology, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics (CBD), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
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24
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Dantzer B, Mabry KE, Bernhardt JR, Cox RM, Francis CD, Ghalambor CK, Hoke KL, Jha S, Ketterson E, Levis NA, McCain KM, Patricelli GL, Paull SH, Pinter-Wollman N, Safran RJ, Schwartz TS, Throop HL, Zaman L, Martin LB. Understanding Organisms Using Ecological Observatory Networks. Integr Org Biol 2023; 5:obad036. [PMID: 37867910 PMCID: PMC10586040 DOI: 10.1093/iob/obad036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2023] [Revised: 06/07/2023] [Accepted: 09/21/2023] [Indexed: 10/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Human activities are rapidly changing ecosystems around the world. These changes have widespread implications for the preservation of biodiversity, agricultural productivity, prevalence of zoonotic diseases, and sociopolitical conflict. To understand and improve the predictive capacity for these and other biological phenomena, some scientists are now relying on observatory networks, which are often composed of systems of sensors, teams of field researchers, and databases of abiotic and biotic measurements across multiple temporal and spatial scales. One well-known example is NEON, the US-based National Ecological Observatory Network. Although NEON and similar networks have informed studies of population, community, and ecosystem ecology for years, they have been minimally used by organismal biologists. NEON provides organismal biologists, in particular those interested in NEON's focal taxa, with an unprecedented opportunity to study phenomena such as range expansions, disease epidemics, invasive species colonization, macrophysiology, and other biological processes that fundamentally involve organismal variation. Here, we use NEON as an exemplar of the promise of observatory networks for understanding the causes and consequences of morphological, behavioral, molecular, and physiological variation among individual organisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- B Dantzer
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109,USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109,USA
| | - K E Mabry
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109,USA
- Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003,USA
| | - J R Bernhardt
- Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003,USA
- Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada
| | - R M Cox
- Department of Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22940,USA
- Department of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407,USA
| | - C D Francis
- Department of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407,USA
- Department of Biology, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics (CBD), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), N‐7491 Trondheim, Norway
| | - C K Ghalambor
- Department of Biology, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics (CBD), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), N‐7491 Trondheim, Norway
- Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
| | - K L Hoke
- Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
| | - S Jha
- Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712,USA
| | - E Ketterson
- Department of Biology, Indiana University, 1001 E. Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47405,USA
| | - N A Levis
- Department of Biology, Indiana University, 1001 E. Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47405,USA
| | - K M McCain
- Global Health and Infectious Disease Research Center, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612,USA
| | - G L Patricelli
- Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616,USA
| | - S H Paull
- Battelle, National Ecological Observatory Network, 1685 38th Street, Boulder, CO 80301, USA
| | - N Pinter-Wollman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, 621 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - R J Safran
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309,USA
| | - T S Schwartz
- Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
| | - H L Throop
- School of Earth and Space Exploration and School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
| | - L Zaman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109,USA
- Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - L B Martin
- Global Health and Infectious Disease Research Center and Center for Genomics, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612,USA
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25
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Tung J, Lange EC, Alberts SC, Archie EA. Social and early life determinants of survival from cradle to grave: A case study in wild baboons. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 152:105282. [PMID: 37321362 PMCID: PMC10529797 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105282] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2023] [Revised: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 06/10/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Field studies of natural mammal populations present powerful opportunities to investigate the determinants of health and aging using fine-grained observations of known individuals across the life course. Here, we synthesize five decades of findings from one such study: the wild baboons of the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya. First, we discuss the profound associations between early life adversity, adult social conditions, and key aging outcomes in this population, especially survival. Second, we review potential mediators of the relationship between early life adversity and survival in our population. Notably, our tests of two leading candidate mediators-social isolation and glucocorticoid levels-fail to identify a single, strong mediator of early life effects on adult survival. Instead, early adversity, social isolation, and glucocorticoids are independently linked to adult lifespans, suggesting considerable scope for mitigating the negative consequences of early life adversity. Third, we review our work on the evolutionary rationale for early life effects on mortality, which currently argues against clear predictive adaptive responses. Finally, we end by highlighting major themes emerging from the study of sociality, development, and aging in the Amboseli baboons, as well as important open questions for future work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jenny Tung
- Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany; Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham NC, USA; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Canada; Duke Population Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
| | - Elizabeth C Lange
- Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham NC, USA; Department of Biological Sciences, State University of New York at Oswego, Oswego, NY, USA
| | - Susan C Alberts
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham NC, USA; Duke Population Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Elizabeth A Archie
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
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Marcantonio M, Voda R, Da Re D, Igot Q, Dennis RLH, Vielfaure A, Vanwambeke SO, Nieberding CM. The Effect of Habitat on Insect Movements: Experimental Evidence from Wild-Caught Butterflies. INSECTS 2023; 14:737. [PMID: 37754705 PMCID: PMC10531938 DOI: 10.3390/insects14090737] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Revised: 08/25/2023] [Accepted: 08/25/2023] [Indexed: 09/28/2023]
Abstract
There is broad evidence that the main driver of the ongoing biodiversity crisis is land-use change, which reduces and fragments habitats. The consequence of habitat fragmentation on behavioural responses of fitness-related traits in insects have been so far understudied. In herbivorous insects, oviposition-related behaviours determine access to larval food, and the fate of the next generation. We present a pilot study to assess differences in behaviours related to movement and oviposition in Limenitis camilla butterflies from Wallonia (Belgium), one of the most fragmented regions in Europe. We first quantified variation in functional habitat connectivity across Wallonia and found that fragmented habitats had more abundant, but less evenly distributed host plants of L. camilla. Secondly, we quantified the behaviours of field-caught L. camilla females originating from habitats with contrasted landscape connectivity in an outdoor experimental setting. We found differences in behaviours related to flight investment: butterflies from fragmented woodlands spent more time in departing flight, which we associated with dispersal, than butterflies from homogenous woodlands. Although results from this study should be interpreted with caution given the limited sample size, they provide valuable insights for the advancement of behavioural research that aims to assess the effects of global changes on insects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matteo Marcantonio
- Earth & Life Institute, University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Carnoy Building, Croix du sud 4-5, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (A.V.); (C.M.N.)
| | - Raluca Voda
- Earth & Life Institute, University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Carnoy Building, Croix du sud 4-5, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (A.V.); (C.M.N.)
| | - Daniele Da Re
- Centre for Earth and Climate Research, Earth & Life Institute, University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Place Louis Pasteur 3, Bâtiment Mercator, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (D.D.R.); (S.O.V.)
| | - Quentin Igot
- Centre for Earth and Climate Research, Earth & Life Institute, University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Place Louis Pasteur 3, Bâtiment Mercator, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (D.D.R.); (S.O.V.)
| | - Roger L. H. Dennis
- UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Maclean Building, Benson Lane, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK;
| | - Aurélien Vielfaure
- Earth & Life Institute, University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Carnoy Building, Croix du sud 4-5, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (A.V.); (C.M.N.)
- L’Institut Agro Dijon, 26, bd Docteur Petitjean-BP 87999, 21079 Dijon, France
| | - Sophie O. Vanwambeke
- Centre for Earth and Climate Research, Earth & Life Institute, University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Place Louis Pasteur 3, Bâtiment Mercator, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (D.D.R.); (S.O.V.)
| | - Caroline M. Nieberding
- Earth & Life Institute, University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Carnoy Building, Croix du sud 4-5, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; (A.V.); (C.M.N.)
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27
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Soularue JP, Firmat C, Caignard T, Thöni A, Arnoux L, Delzon S, Ronce O, Kremer A. Antagonistic Effects of Assortative Mating on the Evolution of Phenotypic Plasticity along Environmental Gradients. Am Nat 2023; 202:18-39. [PMID: 37384769 PMCID: PMC7614710 DOI: 10.1086/724579] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2023]
Abstract
AbstractPrevious theory has shown that assortative mating for plastic traits can maintain genetic divergence across environmental gradients despite high gene flow. Yet these models did not examine how assortative mating affects the evolution of plasticity. We here describe patterns of genetic variation across elevation for plasticity in a trait under assortative mating, using multiple-year observations of budburst date in a common garden of sessile oaks. Despite high gene flow, we found significant spatial genetic divergence for the intercept, but not for the slope, of reaction norms to temperature. We then used individual-based simulations, where both the slope and the intercept of the reaction norm evolve, to examine how assortative mating affects the evolution of plasticity, varying the intensity and distance of gene flow. Our model predicts the evolution of either suboptimal plasticity (reaction norms with a slope shallower than optimal) or hyperplasticity (slopes steeper than optimal) in the presence of assortative mating when optimal plasticity would evolve under random mating. Furthermore, a cogradient pattern of genetic divergence for the intercept of the reaction norm (where plastic and genetic effects are in the same direction) always evolves in simulations with assortative mating, consistent with our observations in the studied oak populations.
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28
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James A, Hann A, Holland EP. Brood size in an uncertain world. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2023; 10:221362. [PMID: 37351496 PMCID: PMC10282570 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.221362] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2022] [Accepted: 06/08/2023] [Indexed: 06/24/2023]
Abstract
Reproduction in an uncertain world is fraught. The consequences of investing in too many offspring in a resource poor season can be disastrous but so too is missing the opportunity of a resource rich year. We consider a simple population and individual growth model and use Lyapunov exponents to find analytical results for the optimum brood size under stochastic environmental conditions. We show that if the environment shows dramatic changes between breeding seasons choosing a smaller brood size is more likely to be successful but the best strategy is to synchronize your reproduction to the food availability. Finally, we show that if the cost of having offspring is high it can be better to live in a highly varying world with a plastic strategy that synchronizes to the environment than to live in a deterministic world with a constant strategy, a finding with implications for invasive species and climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex James
- School of Maths and Stats, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
| | - Alexander Hann
- School of Maths and Stats, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
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29
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Pérez-Consuegra SG, Sánchez-Tovar L, Rodríguez-Tapia G, Castañeda-Rico S, Vázquez-Domínguez E. Late Pleistocene Altitudinal Segregation and Demography Define Future Climate Change Distribution of the Peromyscus mexicanus Species Group: Conservation Implications. Animals (Basel) 2023; 13:1753. [PMID: 37889659 PMCID: PMC10251973 DOI: 10.3390/ani13111753] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2023] [Revised: 05/19/2023] [Accepted: 05/22/2023] [Indexed: 10/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Mountains harbor a significant number of the World's biodiversity, both on tropical and temperate regions. Notably, one crucial gap in conservation is the consideration of historical and contemporary patterns influencing differential distribution in small mammal mountain species and how climate change will affect their distribution and survival. The mice Peromyscus mexicanus species group is distributed across mountains in Guatemala-Chiapas and Central America, which experienced significant effects of glacial and interglacial cycles. We determined phylogeographic and demographic patterns of lowlands and highlands mountain lineages, revealing that the radiation of modern P. mexicanus lineages occurred during the Pleistocene (ca. 2.6 mya) along Nuclear Central America. In concert with climatic cycles and the distribution of habitats, lowland and highland lineages showed recent population size increase and decrease, respectively. We also estimated the current and future distribution ranges for six lineages, finding marked area size increase for two lineages for which vegetation type and distribution would facilitate migrating towards higher elevations. Contrastingly, three lineages showed range size decrease; their ecological requirements make them highly susceptible to future habitat loss. Our findings are clear evidence of the negative impacts of future climate change, while our ability to manage and conserve these vulnerable ecosystems and mountain species is contingent on our understanding of the implications of climate change on the distribution, ecology, and genetics of wildlife populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sergio G. Pérez-Consuegra
- Departamento de Ecología, Escuela de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas y Farmacia, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de Mexico 04510, Mexico
| | - Laura Sánchez-Tovar
- Departamento de Ecología de la Biodiversidad, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Ciudad de Mexico 04510, Mexico; (L.S.-T.); (G.R.-T.)
| | - Gerardo Rodríguez-Tapia
- Departamento de Ecología de la Biodiversidad, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Ciudad de Mexico 04510, Mexico; (L.S.-T.); (G.R.-T.)
| | - Susette Castañeda-Rico
- Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC 20008, USA;
- Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA
| | - Ella Vázquez-Domínguez
- Departamento de Ecología de la Biodiversidad, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Ciudad de Mexico 04510, Mexico; (L.S.-T.); (G.R.-T.)
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30
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Draghi JA. Bet-hedging via dispersal aids the evolution of plastic responses to unreliable cues. J Evol Biol 2023. [PMID: 37224140 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.14182] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2022] [Revised: 01/19/2023] [Accepted: 04/23/2023] [Indexed: 05/26/2023]
Abstract
Adaptive plasticity is expected to evolve when informative cues predict environmental variation. However, plastic responses can be maladaptive even when those cues are informative, if prediction mistakes are shared across members of a generation. These fitness costs can constrain the evolution of plasticity when initial plastic mutants use of cues of only moderate reliability. Here, we model the barriers to the evolution of plasticity produced by these constraints and show that dispersal across a metapopulation can overcome them. Constraints are also lessened, though not eliminated, when plastic responses are free to evolve gradually and in concert with increased reliability. Each of these factors be viewed as a form of bet-hedging: by lessening correlations in the fates of relatives, dispersal acts as diversifying bet-hedging, while producing submaximal responses to a cue can be understood as a conservative bet-hedging strategy. While poor information may constrain the evolution of plasticity, the opportunity for bet-hedging may predict when that constraint can be overcome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jeremy A Draghi
- Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
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31
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Booth JM, Giomi F, Daffonchio D, McQuaid CD, Fusi M. Disturbance of primary producer communities disrupts the thermal limits of the associated aquatic fauna. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 872:162135. [PMID: 36775146 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162135] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2022] [Revised: 01/25/2023] [Accepted: 02/05/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Environmental fluctuation forms a framework of variability within which species have evolved. Environmental fluctuation includes predictability, such as diel cycles of aquatic oxygen fluctuation driven by primary producers. Oxygen availability and fluctuation shape the physiological responses of aquatic animals to warming, so that, in theory, oxygen fluctuation could influence their thermal ecology. We describe annual oxygen variability in agricultural drainage channels and show that disruption of oxygen fluctuation through dredging of plants reduces the thermal tolerance of freshwater animals. We compared the temperature responses of snails, amphipods, leeches and mussels exposed to either natural oxygen fluctuation or constant oxygen in situ under different acclimation periods. Oxygen saturation in channel water ranged from c. 0 % saturation at night to >300 % during the day. Temperature showed normal seasonal variation and was almost synchronous with daily oxygen fluctuation. A dredging event in 2020 dramatically reduced dissolved oxygen variability and the correlation between oxygen and temperature was lost. The tolerance of invertebrates to thermal stress was significantly lower when natural fluctuation in oxygen availability was reduced and decoupled from temperature. This highlights the importance of natural cycles of variability and the need to include finer scale effects, including indirect biological effects, in modelling the ecosystem-level consequences of climate change. Furthermore, restoration and management of primary producers in aquatic habitats could be important to improve the thermal protection of aquatic invertebrates and their resistance to environmental variation imposed by climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- J M Booth
- Coastal Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
| | - F Giomi
- Via Maniciati, 6, Padova, Italy
| | - D Daffonchio
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering Division (BESE), Red Sea Research Center (RSRC), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia
| | - C D McQuaid
- Coastal Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
| | - M Fusi
- Centre for Conservation and Restoration Science, School of Applied Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK; Present address: Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Peterborough PE1 1JY, UK.
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32
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Ketola T, Kronholm I. Experimental evolution of evolutionary potential in fluctuating environments. J Evol Biol 2023. [PMID: 37129538 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.14178] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/19/2022] [Revised: 02/02/2023] [Accepted: 03/22/2023] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
Variation is the raw material for evolution. Evolutionary potential is determined by the amount of genetic variation, but evolution can also alter the visibility of genetic variation to natural selection. Fluctuating environments are suggested to maintain genetic variation but they can also affect environmental variance, and thus, the visibility of genetic variation to natural selection. However, experimental studies testing these ideas are relatively scarce. In order to determine differences in evolutionary potential we quantified variance attributable to population, genotype and environment for populations of the bacterium Serratia marcescens. These populations had been experimentally evolved in constant and two fluctuating environments. We found that strains that evolved in fluctuating environments exhibited larger environmental variation suggesting that adaptation to fluctuations has decreased the visibility of genetic variation to selection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tarmo Ketola
- Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Ilkka Kronholm
- Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
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33
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Dantzer B. Frank Beach Award Winner: The centrality of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in dealing with environmental change across temporal scales. Horm Behav 2023; 150:105311. [PMID: 36707334 DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2023.105311] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2022] [Revised: 01/02/2023] [Accepted: 01/06/2023] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Understanding if and how individuals and populations cope with environmental change is an enduring question in evolutionary ecology that has renewed importance given the pace of change in the Anthropocene. Two evolutionary strategies of coping with environmental change may be particularly important in rapidly changing environments: adaptive phenotypic plasticity and/or bet hedging. Adaptive plasticity could enable individuals to match their phenotypes to the expected environment if there is an accurate cue predicting the selective environment. Diversifying bet hedging involves the production of seemingly random phenotypes in an unpredictable environment, some of which may be adaptive. Here, I review the central role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and glucocorticoids (GCs) in enabling vertebrates to cope with environmental change through adaptive plasticity and bet hedging. I first describe how the HPA axis mediates three types of adaptive plasticity to cope with environmental change (evasion, tolerance, recovery) over short timescales (e.g., 1-3 generations) before discussing how the implications of GCs on phenotype integration may depend upon the timescale under consideration. GCs can promote adaptive phenotypic integration, but their effects on phenotypic co-variation could also limit the dimensions of phenotypic space explored by animals over longer timescales. Finally, I discuss how organismal responses to environmental stressors can act as a bet hedging mechanism and therefore enhance evolvability by increasing genetic or phenotypic variability or reducing patterns of genetic and phenotypic co-variance. Together, this emphasizes the crucial role of the HPA axis in understanding fundamental questions in evolutionary ecology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ben Dantzer
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, MI 48109 Ann Arbor, MI, USA; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, MI 48109, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
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Volaire F, Barkaoui K, Grémillet D, Charrier G, Dangles O, Lamarque LJ, Martin-StPaul N, Chuine I. Is a seasonally reduced growth potential a convergent strategy to survive drought and frost in plants? ANNALS OF BOTANY 2023; 131:245-254. [PMID: 36567631 PMCID: PMC9992932 DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcac153] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2022] [Accepted: 12/14/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Plants have adapted to survive seasonal life-threatening frost and drought. However, the timing and frequency of such events are impacted by climate change, jeopardizing plant survival. Understanding better the strategies of survival to dehydration stress is therefore timely and can be enhanced by the cross-fertilization of research between disciplines (ecology, physiology), models (woody, herbaceous species) and types of stress (drought, frost). SCOPE We build upon the 'growth-stress survival' trade-off, which underpins the identification of global plant strategies across environments along a 'fast-slow' economics spectrum. Although phenological adaptations such as dormancy are crucial to survive stress, plant global strategies along the fast-slow economic spectrum rarely integrate growth variations across seasons. We argue that the growth-stress survival trade-off can be a useful framework to identify convergent plant ecophysiological strategies to survive both frost and drought. We review evidence that reduced physiological activity, embolism resistance and dehydration tolerance of meristematic tissues are interdependent strategies that determine thresholds of mortality among plants under severe frost and drought. We show that complete dormancy, i.e. programmed growth cessation, before stress occurrence, minimizes water flows and maximizes dehydration tolerance during seasonal life-threatening stresses. We propose that incomplete dormancy, i.e. the programmed reduction of growth potential during the harshest seasons, could be an overlooked but major adaptation across plants. Quantifying stress survival in a range of non-dormant versus winter- or summer-dormant plants, should reveal to what extent incomplete to complete dormancy could represent a proxy for dehydration tolerance and stress survival. CONCLUSIONS Our review of the strategies involved in dehydration stress survival suggests that winter and summer dormancy are insufficiently acknowledged as plant ecological strategies. Incorporating a seasonal fast-slow economics spectrum into global plant strategies improves our understanding of plant resilience to seasonal stress and refines our prevision of plant adaptation to extreme climatic events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Florence Volaire
- CEFE, Université Montpellier, INRAE, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, F-34090 Montpellier, France
| | - Karim Barkaoui
- CIRAD, UMR ABSys, F-34398 Montpellier, France
- ABSys, Université F-34060 Montpellier, CIHEAM-IAMM, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France
| | - David Grémillet
- CEFE, Université Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, F-34090 Montpellier, France
- Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa
| | - Guillaume Charrier
- Université Clermont Auvergne, INRAE, PIAF, F-63000 Clermont Ferrand, France
| | - Olivier Dangles
- CEFE, Université Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, F-34090 Montpellier, France
| | - Laurent J Lamarque
- Département des Sciences de l’Environnement, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, QC, G9A 5H7, Canada
| | - Nicolas Martin-StPaul
- INRAE, URFM, Domaine Saint Paul, Centre de recherche PACA, 228 route de l’Aérodrome, CS 40509, Domaine Saint-Paul, Site Agroparc, France
| | - Isabelle Chuine
- CEFE, Université Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, F-34090 Montpellier, France
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Falik O, Novoplansky A. Interspecific Drought Cuing in Plants. PLANTS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2023; 12:1200. [PMID: 36904059 PMCID: PMC10007240 DOI: 10.3390/plants12051200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2022] [Revised: 02/17/2023] [Accepted: 02/28/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Plants readily communicate with their pollinators, herbivores, symbionts, and the predators and pathogens of their herbivores. We previously demonstrated that plants could exchange, relay, and adaptively utilize drought cues from their conspecific neighbors. Here, we studied the hypothesis that plants can exchange drought cues with their interspecific neighbors. Triplets of various combinations of split-root Stenotaphrum secundatum and Cynodon dactylon plants were planted in rows of four pots. One root of the first plant was subjected to drought while its other root shared its pot with one of the roots of an unstressed target neighbor, which, in turn, shared its other pot with an additional unstressed target neighbor. Drought cuing and relayed cuing were observed in all intra- and interspecific neighbor combinations, but its strength depended on plant identity and position. Although both species initiated similar stomatal closure in both immediate and relayed intraspecific neighbors, interspecific cuing between stressed plants and their immediate unstressed neighbors depended on neighbor identity. Combined with previous findings, the results suggest that stress cuing and relay cuing could affect the magnitude and fate of interspecific interactions, and the ability of whole communities to endure abiotic stresses. The findings call for further investigation into the mechanisms and ecological implications of interplant stress cuing at the population and community levels.
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Affiliation(s)
- Omer Falik
- Achva Academic College, Arugot 7980400, Israel
- Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, Midreshet Ben-Gurion, 8499000, Israel
| | - Ariel Novoplansky
- Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, Midreshet Ben-Gurion, 8499000, Israel
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36
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Zheng S, Hu J, Ma Z, Lindenmayer D, Liu J. Increases in intraspecific body size variation are common among North American mammals and birds between 1880 and 2020. Nat Ecol Evol 2023; 7:347-354. [PMID: 36690729 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01967-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2022] [Accepted: 11/29/2022] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
Many studies have documented the average body size of animals declining over time. Compared to mean body size, less is known about long-term changes in intraspecific trait variation (ITV), which is also important to understanding species' ability to cope with environmental challenges. On the basis of 393,499 specimen records from 380 species collected in North America between 1880 and 2020, we found that body size ITV increased by 9.59% for mammals (n = 302) and 30.67% for birds (n = 78); human-harvested species had higher probability of ITV increase. The observed increasing ITV in many species suggests possible niche expansion and potential buffering effects against downsizing but it risks increased maladaptation to rapidly changing environments. The results demonstrate that trait mean and variance do not necessarily respond in similar ways to anthropogenic pressures and both should be considered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shilu Zheng
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Juntao Hu
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Zhijun Ma
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - David Lindenmayer
- Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
| | - Jiajia Liu
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. .,Institute of Eco-Chongming, Shanghai, China.
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37
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Gremer JR. Looking to the past to understand the future: linking evolutionary modes of response with functional and life history traits in variable environments. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2023; 237:751-757. [PMID: 36349401 DOI: 10.1111/nph.18605] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2022] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
In a variable world, plants must have strategies to deal with environmental conditions as they change. Understanding these strategies is critical since climate change not only affects mean conditions but also affects variability and predictability of those conditions. Doing so requires identifying how functional and life history traits interact throughout the life cycle to drive responses, as well as exploring how past variability will shape future responses. Here, I highlight relevant life history theory for predicting strategies in relation to the nature of environmental variability, relate theory to empirical studies integrating functional and life history traits to understand responses, and identify key areas for future research that will facilitate the application of this understanding toward predicting responses to climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer R Gremer
- Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA
- Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA
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38
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James RK, Keyzer LM, van de Velde SJ, Herman PMJ, van Katwijk MM, Bouma TJ. Climate change mitigation by coral reefs and seagrass beds at risk: How global change compromises coastal ecosystem services. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 857:159576. [PMID: 36273559 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159576] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2022] [Revised: 10/14/2022] [Accepted: 10/15/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Seagrass meadows provide valuable ecosystem services of coastal protection and chemical habitat formation that could help mitigate the impact of sea level rise and ocean acidification. However, the intensification of hydrodynamic forces caused by sea level rise, in addition to habitat degradation threaten the provision of these ecosystem services. With quantitative field measurements of the coastal protection and chemical habitat formation services of seagrass meadows, we statistically model the relationships between hydrodynamic forces, vegetation density and the provision of these ecosystem services. Utilising a high-resolution hydrodynamic model that simulates end of the century hydrodynamic conditions and three scenarios of coral reef degradation (i.e., keep up, remain or loss) we quantify how the environmental conditions within a tropical bay will change given changes to the provision of ecosystem services. Our study shows that increasing hydrodynamic forces lead to a seafloor made up of a larger grain size that is increasingly unstable and more vulnerable to erosion. The loss of a fringing reef leads to larger hydrodynamic forces entering the bay, however, the 0.87 m increase in depth due to sea-level rise reduces the bed shear stress in shallower areas, which limits the change in the ecosystem services provided by the current benthic seagrass meadow. Loss of seagrass constitutes the greatest change in a bay ecosystem, resulting in the sediment surface where seagrass existed becoming unstable and the median sediment grain size increasing by 5-7 %. The loss of seagrass also leads to the disappearance of the unique fluctuating chemical habitat, which leaves the surrounding community vulnerable to ocean acidification. A reduction or complete loss of these ecosystem services would impact the entire community assemblage while also leaving the surrounding coastline vulnerable to erosion, thus exacerbating negative effects brought about by climate change.
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Affiliation(s)
- R K James
- Department of Estuarine & Delta Systems, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and Utrecht University, Yerseke, the Netherlands; Bgeosys, Department of Geoscience, Environment and Society, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
| | - L M Keyzer
- Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands
| | - S J van de Velde
- Bgeosys, Department of Geoscience, Environment and Society, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium; Operational Directorate Natural Environment, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium
| | - P M J Herman
- Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands; Marine & Coastal Systems, Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands
| | - M M van Katwijk
- Department of Environmental Science, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Faculty of Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - T J Bouma
- Department of Estuarine & Delta Systems, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and Utrecht University, Yerseke, the Netherlands; Faculty of Geosciences, Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
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Stemkovski M, Bell JR, Ellwood ER, Inouye BD, Kobori H, Lee SD, Lloyd-Evans T, Primack RB, Templ B, Pearse WD. Disorder or a new order: How climate change affects phenological variability. Ecology 2023; 104:e3846. [PMID: 36199230 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3846] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2021] [Revised: 05/12/2022] [Accepted: 06/30/2022] [Indexed: 02/01/2023]
Abstract
Advancing spring phenology is a well documented consequence of anthropogenic climate change, but it is not well understood how climate change will affect the variability of phenology year to year. Species' phenological timings reflect the adaptation to a broad suite of abiotic needs (e.g., thermal energy) and biotic interactions (e.g., predation and pollination), and changes in patterns of variability may disrupt those adaptations and interactions. Here, we present a geographically and taxonomically broad analysis of phenological shifts, temperature sensitivity, and changes in interannual variability encompassing nearly 10,000 long-term phenology time series representing more than 1000 species across much of the Northern Hemisphere. We show that the timings of leaf-out, flowering, insect first-occurrence, and bird arrival were the most sensitive to temperature variation and have advanced at the fastest pace for early-season species in colder and less seasonal regions. We did not find evidence for changing variability in warmer years in any phenophase groups, although leaf-out and flower phenology have become moderately but significantly less variable over time. Our findings suggest that climate change has not to this point fundamentally altered the patterns of interannual phenological variability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Stemkovski
- Department of Biology & Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA.,Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, Colorado, USA
| | | | - Elizabeth R Ellwood
- Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, California, USA.,iDigBio, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
| | - Brian D Inouye
- Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Crested Butte, Colorado, USA.,Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
| | | | - Sang Don Lee
- Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | | | - Richard B Primack
- Department of Biology, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | | | - William D Pearse
- Department of Biology & Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA.,Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Berkshire, UK
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40
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Pfenninger M, Foucault Q. Population Genomic Time Series Data of a Natural Population Suggests Adaptive Tracking of Fluctuating Environmental Changes. Integr Comp Biol 2022; 62:1812-1826. [PMID: 35762661 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icac098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2022] [Revised: 06/07/2022] [Accepted: 06/16/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Natural populations are constantly exposed to fluctuating environmental changes that negatively affect their fitness in unpredictable ways. While theoretical models show the possibility of counteracting these environmental changes through rapid evolutionary adaptations, there have been few empirical studies demonstrating such adaptive tracking in natural populations. Here, we analyzed environmental data, fitness-related phenotyping and genomic time-series data sampled over 3 years from a natural Chironomus riparius (Diptera, Insecta) population to address this question. We show that the population's environment varied significantly on the time scale of the sampling in many selectively relevant dimensions, independently of each other. Similarly, phenotypic fitness components evolved significantly on the same temporal scale (mean 0.32 Haldanes), likewise independent from each other. The allele frequencies of 367,446 SNPs across the genome showed evidence of positive selection. Using temporal correlation of spatially coherent allele frequency changes revealed 35,574 haplotypes with more than one selected SNP. The mean selection coefficient for these haplotypes was 0.30 (s.d. = 0.68). The frequency changes of these haplotypes clustered in 46 different temporal patterns, indicating concerted, independent evolution of many polygenic traits. Nine of these patterns were strongly correlated with measured environmental variables. Enrichment analysis of affected genes suggested the implication of a wide variety of biological processes. Thus, our results suggest overall that the natural population of C. riparius tracks environmental change through rapid polygenic adaptation in many independent dimensions. This is further evidence that natural selection is pervasive at the genomic level and that evolutionary and ecological time scales may not differ at all, at least in some organisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Markus Pfenninger
- Department Molecular Ecology, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.,Institute for Molecular and Organismic Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg University, Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 7, 55128 Mainz, Germany.,LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Quentin Foucault
- Department Molecular Ecology, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.,Institute for Molecular and Organismic Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg University, Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 7, 55128 Mainz, Germany
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41
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Olazcuaga L, Foucaud J, Deschamps C, Loiseau A, Claret J, Vedovato R, Guilhot R, Sévely C, Gautier M, Hufbauer RA, Rode NO, Estoup A. Rapid and transient evolution of local adaptation to seasonal host fruits in an invasive pest fly. Evol Lett 2022; 6:490-505. [PMID: 36579160 PMCID: PMC9783429 DOI: 10.1002/evl3.304] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2022] [Revised: 07/12/2022] [Accepted: 10/27/2022] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Both local adaptation and adaptive phenotypic plasticity can influence the match between phenotypic traits and local environmental conditions. Theory predicts that environments stable for multiple generations promote local adaptation, whereas highly heterogeneous environments favor adaptive phenotypic plasticity. However, when environments have periods of stability mixed with heterogeneity, the relative importance of local adaptation and adaptive phenotypic plasticity is unclear. Here, we used Drosophila suzukii as a model system to evaluate the relative influence of genetic and plastic effects on the match of populations to environments with periods of stability from three to four generations. This invasive pest insect can develop within different fruits, and persists throughout the year in a given location on a succession of distinct host fruits, each one being available for only a few generations. Using reciprocal common environment experiments of natural D. suzukii populations collected from cherry, strawberry, and blackberry, we found that both oviposition preference and offspring performance were higher on medium made with the fruit from which the population originated than on media made with alternative fruits. This pattern, which remained after two generations in the laboratory, was analyzed using a statistical method we developed to quantify the contributions of local adaptation and adaptive plasticity in determining fitness. Altogether, we found that genetic effects (local adaptation) dominate over plastic effects (adaptive phenotypic plasticity). Our study demonstrates that spatially and temporally variable selection does not prevent the rapid evolution of local adaptation in natural populations. The speed and strength of adaptation may be facilitated by several mechanisms including a large effective population size and strong selective pressures imposed by host plants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laure Olazcuaga
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France,Department of Agricultural BiologyColorado State UniversityFort CollinsColorado80523USA
| | - Julien Foucaud
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Candice Deschamps
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Anne Loiseau
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Jean‐Loup Claret
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Romain Vedovato
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Robin Guilhot
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Cyril Sévely
- Chambre d'agriculture de l'HéraultLattes34875France
| | - Mathieu Gautier
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Ruth A. Hufbauer
- Department of Agricultural BiologyColorado State UniversityFort CollinsColorado80523USA,Graduate Degree Program in EcologyColorado State UniversityFort CollinsColorado80523USA
| | - Nicolas O. Rode
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
| | - Arnaud Estoup
- CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro, Univ MontpellierMontpellier34988France
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42
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Stamps JA, Luttbeg B. Sensitive Period Diversity: Insights From Evolutionary Models. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1086/722637] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
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March-Salas M, Scheepens JF, van Kleunen M, Fitze PS. Precipitation predictability affects intra- and trans-generational plasticity and causes differential selection on root traits of Papaver rhoeas. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2022; 13:998169. [PMID: 36452110 PMCID: PMC9703072 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.998169] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2022] [Accepted: 10/24/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Climate forecasts show that in many regions the temporal distribution of precipitation events will become less predictable. Root traits may play key roles in dealing with changes in precipitation predictability, but their functional plastic responses, including transgenerational processes, are scarcely known. We investigated root trait plasticity of Papaver rhoeas with respect to higher versus lower intra-seasonal and inter-seasonal precipitation predictability (i.e., the degree of temporal autocorrelation among precipitation events) during a four-year outdoor multi-generation experiment. We first tested how the simulated predictability regimes affected intra-generational plasticity of root traits and allocation strategies of the ancestors, and investigated the selective forces acting on them. Second, we exposed three descendant generations to the same predictability regime experienced by their mothers or to a different one. We then investigated whether high inter-generational predictability causes root trait differentiation, whether transgenerational root plasticity existed and whether it was affected by the different predictability treatments. We found that the number of secondary roots, root biomass and root allocation strategies of ancestors were affected by changes in precipitation predictability, in line with intra-generational plasticity. Lower predictability induced a root response, possibly reflecting a fast-acquisitive strategy that increases water absorbance from shallow soil layers. Ancestors' root traits were generally under selection, and the predictability treatments did neither affect the strength nor the direction of selection. Transgenerational effects were detected in root biomass and root weight ratio (RWR). In presence of lower predictability, descendants significantly reduced RWR compared to ancestors, leading to an increase in performance. This points to a change in root allocation in order to maintain or increase the descendants' fitness. Moreover, transgenerational plasticity existed in maximum rooting depth and root biomass, and the less predictable treatment promoted the lowest coefficient of variation among descendants' treatments in five out of six root traits. This shows that the level of maternal predictability determines the variation in the descendants' responses, and suggests that lower phenotypic plasticity evolves in less predictable environments. Overall, our findings show that roots are functional plastic traits that rapidly respond to differences in precipitation predictability, and that the plasticity and adaptation of root traits may crucially determine how climate change will affect plants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martí March-Salas
- Plant Evolutionary Ecology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain
- Department of Biodiversity and Ecologic Restoration, Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Jaca, Spain
| | - J. F. Scheepens
- Plant Evolutionary Ecology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Mark van Kleunen
- Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China
| | - Patrick S. Fitze
- Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Madrid, Spain
- Department of Biodiversity and Ecologic Restoration, Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (IPE-CSIC), Jaca, Spain
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44
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Campana JLM, Raffard A, Chaine AS, Huet M, Legrand D, Jacob S. Dispersal plasticity driven by variation in fitness across species and environmental gradients. Ecol Lett 2022; 25:2410-2421. [PMID: 36198081 PMCID: PMC9827879 DOI: 10.1111/ele.14101] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Revised: 07/07/2022] [Accepted: 08/12/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Dispersal plasticity, when organisms adjust their dispersal decisions depending on their environment, can play a major role in ecological and evolutionary dynamics, but how it relates to fitness remains scarcely explored. Theory predicts that high dispersal plasticity should evolve when environmental gradients have a strong impact on fitness. Using microcosms, we tested in five species of the genus Tetrahymena whether dispersal plasticity relates to differences in fitness sensitivity along three environmental gradients. Dispersal plasticity was species- and environment-dependent. As expected, dispersal plasticity was generally related to fitness sensitivity, with higher dispersal plasticity when fitness is more affected by environmental gradients. Individuals often preferentially disperse out of low fitness environments, but leaving environments that should yield high fitness was also commonly observed. We provide empirical support for a fundamental, but largely untested, assumption in dispersal theory: the extent of dispersal plasticity correlates with fitness sensitivity to the environment.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Allan Raffard
- Université catholique de Louvain, Earth and Life Institute, Biodiversity Research CentreLouvain‐la‐NeuveBelgium,Present address:
Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, INRAE, CARRTELThonon‐les‐BainsFrance
| | - Alexis S. Chaine
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et ExpérimentaleUAR CNRS 2029MoulisFrance
| | - Michèle Huet
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et ExpérimentaleUAR CNRS 2029MoulisFrance
| | - Delphine Legrand
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et ExpérimentaleUAR CNRS 2029MoulisFrance
| | - Staffan Jacob
- Station d'Ecologie Théorique et ExpérimentaleUAR CNRS 2029MoulisFrance
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45
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Yu Y, Bergland AO. Distinct signals of clinal and seasonal allele frequency change at eQTLs in Drosophila melanogaster. Evolution 2022; 76:2758-2768. [PMID: 36097359 PMCID: PMC9710195 DOI: 10.1111/evo.14617] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2021] [Revised: 07/31/2022] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Populations of short-lived organisms can respond to spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity through local adaptation. Local adaptation can be reflected on both phenotypic and genetic levels, and it has been documented in many organisms. Although complex fitness-related phenotypes have been shown to vary across latitudinal clines and seasons in similar ways in Drosophila melanogaster populations, the comparative signals of local adaptation across space and time remain poorly understood. Here, we examined patterns of allele frequency change across a latitudinal cline and between seasons at previously reported expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs). We divided eQTLs into groups by using differential expression profiles of fly populations collected across latitudinal clines or exposed to different environmental conditions. In general, we find that eQTLs are enriched for clinally varying polymorphisms, and that these eQTLs change in frequency in concordant ways across the cline and in response to starvation and chill-coma. The enrichment of eQTLs among seasonally varying polymorphisms is more subtle, and the direction of allele frequency change at eQTLs appears to be somewhat idiosyncratic. Taken together, we suggest that clinal adaptation at eQTLs is at least partially distinct from seasonal adaptation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Yu
- Department of BiologyUniversity of VirginiaCharlottesvilleVirginia22904
| | - Alan O. Bergland
- Department of BiologyUniversity of VirginiaCharlottesvilleVirginia22904
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Vermeersch L, Cool L, Gorkovskiy A, Voordeckers K, Wenseleers T, Verstrepen KJ. Do microbes have a memory? History-dependent behavior in the adaptation to variable environments. Front Microbiol 2022; 13:1004488. [PMID: 36299722 PMCID: PMC9589428 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1004488] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2022] [Accepted: 09/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Microbes are constantly confronted with changes and challenges in their environment. A proper response to these environmental cues is needed for optimal cellular functioning and fitness. Interestingly, past exposure to environmental cues can accelerate or boost the response when this condition returns, even in daughter cells that have not directly encountered the initial cue. Moreover, this behavior is mostly epigenetic and often goes hand in hand with strong heterogeneity in the strength and speed of the response between isogenic cells of the same population, which might function as a bet-hedging strategy. In this review, we discuss examples of history-dependent behavior (HDB) or “memory,” with a specific focus on HDB in fluctuating environments. In most examples discussed, the lag time before the response to an environmental change is used as an experimentally measurable proxy for HDB. We highlight different mechanisms already implicated in HDB, and by using HDB in fluctuating carbon conditions as a case study, we showcase how the metabolic state of a cell can be a key determining factor for HDB. Finally, we consider possible evolutionary causes and consequences of such HDB.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lieselotte Vermeersch
- VIB – KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, Leuven, Belgium
- CMPG Laboratory of Genetics and Genomics, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Lloyd Cool
- VIB – KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, Leuven, Belgium
- CMPG Laboratory of Genetics and Genomics, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Anton Gorkovskiy
- VIB – KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, Leuven, Belgium
- CMPG Laboratory of Genetics and Genomics, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Karin Voordeckers
- VIB – KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, Leuven, Belgium
- CMPG Laboratory of Genetics and Genomics, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Tom Wenseleers
- Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Kevin J. Verstrepen
- VIB – KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, Leuven, Belgium
- CMPG Laboratory of Genetics and Genomics, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- *Correspondence: Kevin J. Verstrepen,
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Fu F, Tschitschko B, Hutchins DA, Larsson ME, Baker KG, McInnes A, Kahlke T, Verma A, Murray SA, Doblin MA. Temperature variability interacts with mean temperature to influence the predictability of microbial phenotypes. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2022; 28:5741-5754. [PMID: 35795906 PMCID: PMC9543556 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16330] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2022] [Revised: 05/23/2022] [Accepted: 06/25/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Despite their relatively high thermal optima (Topt ), tropical taxa may be particularly vulnerable to a rising baseline and increased temperature variation because they live in relatively stable temperatures closer to their Topt . We examined how microbial eukaryotes with differing thermal histories responded to temperature fluctuations of different amplitudes (0 control, ±2, ±4°C) around mean temperatures below or above their Topt . Cosmopolitan dinoflagellates were selected based on their distinct thermal traits and included two species of the same genus (tropical and temperate Coolia spp.), and two strains of the same species maintained at different temperatures for >500 generations (tropical Amphidinium massartii control temperature and high temperature, CT and HT, respectively). There was a universal decline in population growth rate under temperature fluctuations, but strains with narrower thermal niche breadth (temperate Coolia and HT) showed ~10% greater reduction in growth. At suboptimal mean temperatures, cells in the cool phase of the fluctuation stopped dividing, fixed less carbon (C) and had enlarged cell volumes that scaled positively with elemental C, N, and P and C:Chlorophyll-a. However, at a supra-optimal mean temperature, fixed C was directed away from cell division and novel trait combinations developed, leading to greater phenotypic diversity. At the molecular level, heat-shock proteins, and chaperones, in addition to transcripts involving genome rearrangements, were upregulated in CT and HT during the warm phase of the supra-optimal fluctuation (30 ± 4°C), a stress response indicating protection. In contrast, the tropical Coolia species upregulated major energy pathways in the warm phase of its supra-optimal fluctuation (25 ± 4°C), indicating a broadscale shift in metabolism. Our results demonstrate divergent effects between taxa and that temporal variability in environmental conditions interacts with changes in the thermal mean to mediate microbial responses to global change, with implications for biogeochemical cycling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fei‐Xue Fu
- Department of Biological SciencesUniversity of Southern CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Bernhard Tschitschko
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
- Max Planck Institute for Marine MicrobiologyBremenGermany
| | - David A. Hutchins
- Department of Biological SciencesUniversity of Southern CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Michaela E. Larsson
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
| | - Kirralee G. Baker
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
- Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of TasmaniaHobartTasmaniaAustralia
| | - Allison McInnes
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
- Centre for Microbiome Research, School of Biomedical SciencesTranslational Research Institute, Queensland University of TechnologyWoolloongabbaQueenslandAustralia
| | - Tim Kahlke
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
| | - Arjun Verma
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
- School of Life SciencesUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
| | - Shauna A. Murray
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
- School of Life SciencesUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
- Sydney Institute of Marine ScienceMosmanNew South WalesAustralia
| | - Martina A. Doblin
- Climate Change ClusterUniversity of Technology SydneyUltimoNew South WalesAustralia
- Sydney Institute of Marine ScienceMosmanNew South WalesAustralia
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48
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Schneider HM. Characterization, costs, cues and future perspectives of phenotypic plasticity. ANNALS OF BOTANY 2022; 130:131-148. [PMID: 35771883 PMCID: PMC9445595 DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcac087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2022] [Accepted: 06/28/2022] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Plastic responses of plants to the environment are ubiquitous. Phenotypic plasticity occurs in many forms and at many biological scales, and its adaptive value depends on the specific environment and interactions with other plant traits and organisms. Even though plasticity is the norm rather than the exception, its complex nature has been a challenge in characterizing the expression of plasticity, its adaptive value for fitness and the environmental cues that regulate its expression. SCOPE This review discusses the characterization and costs of plasticity and approaches, considerations, and promising research directions in studying plasticity. Phenotypic plasticity is genetically controlled and heritable; however, little is known about how organisms perceive, interpret and respond to environmental cues, and the genes and pathways associated with plasticity. Not every genotype is plastic for every trait, and plasticity is not infinite, suggesting trade-offs, costs and limits to expression of plasticity. The timing, specificity and duration of plasticity are critical to their adaptive value for plant fitness. CONCLUSIONS There are many research opportunities to advance our understanding of plant phenotypic plasticity. New methodology and technological breakthroughs enable the study of phenotypic responses across biological scales and in multiple environments. Understanding the mechanisms of plasticity and how the expression of specific phenotypes influences fitness in many environmental ranges would benefit many areas of plant science ranging from basic research to applied breeding for crop improvement.
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49
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Burton T, Ratikainen II, Einum S. Environmental change and the rate of phenotypic plasticity. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2022; 28:5337-5345. [PMID: 35729070 PMCID: PMC9541213 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2021] [Accepted: 04/20/2022] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
With rapid and less predictable environmental change emerging as the 'new norm', understanding how individuals tolerate environmental stress via plastic, often reversible changes to the phenotype (i.e., reversible phenotypic plasticity, RPP), remains a key issue in ecology. Here, we examine the potential for better understanding how organisms overcome environmental challenges within their own lifetimes by scrutinizing a somewhat overlooked aspect of RPP, namely the rate at which it can occur. Although recent advances in the field provide indication of the aspects of environmental change where RPP rates may be of particular ecological relevance, we observe that current theoretical models do not consider the evolutionary potential of the rate of RPP. Whilst recent theory underscores the importance of environmental predictability in determining the slope of the evolved reaction norm for a given trait (i.e., how much plasticity can occur), a hitherto neglected possibility is that the rate of plasticity might be a more dynamic component of this relationship than previously assumed. If the rate of plasticity itself can evolve, as empirical evidence foreshadows, rates of plasticity may have the potential to alter the level predictability in the environment as perceived by the organism and thus influence the slope of the evolved reaction norm. However, optimality in the rate of phenotypic plasticity, its evolutionary dynamics in different environments and influence of constraints imposed by associated costs remain unexplored and may represent fruitful avenues of exploration in future theoretical and empirical treatments of the topic. We conclude by reviewing published studies of RPP rates, providing suggestions for improving the measurement of RPP rates, both in terms of experimental design and in the statistical quantification of this component of plasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tim Burton
- Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Department of BiologyNorwegian University of Science and TechnologyTrondheimNorway
- Norwegian Institute for Nature ResearchTrondheimNorway
| | - Irja Ida Ratikainen
- Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Department of BiologyNorwegian University of Science and TechnologyTrondheimNorway
| | - Sigurd Einum
- Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Department of BiologyNorwegian University of Science and TechnologyTrondheimNorway
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Corbel Q, Londoño‐Nieto C, Carazo P. Does perception of female cues modulate male short-term fitness components in Drosophila melanogaster? Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e9287. [PMID: 36177144 PMCID: PMC9471061 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.9287] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2022] [Revised: 08/08/2022] [Accepted: 08/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Phenotypic plasticity in reproductive behavior can be a strong driver of individual fitness. In species with high intra-sexual competition, changes in socio-sexual context can trigger quick adaptive plastic responses in males. In particular, a recent study in the vinegar fly (Drosophila melanogaster) shows that males derive net fitness benefits from being shortly exposed to female cues ahead of access to mating (termed sexual perception), but the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon remain unknown. Here, we investigated the short-term effects of female perception on male pre- and post-copulatory components of reproductive performance: (a) mating success, (b) mating latency and duration, (c) sperm competitiveness, and (d) ejaculate effects on female receptivity and reproductive rate. We found that brief sexual perception increased mating duration, but had no effect on the other main pre- and post-copulatory fitness proxies recorded. This suggests that perception of female cues may not yield net fitness benefits for males in the short-term, but we discuss alternative explanations and future avenues of research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Quentin Corbel
- Ethology Lab, Ethology, Ecology and Evolution Group, Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of ValenciaValenciaSpain
| | - Claudia Londoño‐Nieto
- Ethology Lab, Ethology, Ecology and Evolution Group, Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of ValenciaValenciaSpain
| | - Pau Carazo
- Ethology Lab, Ethology, Ecology and Evolution Group, Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of ValenciaValenciaSpain
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