Environmental Change, Phenotypic Plasticity, and Genetic Compensation

Grether, Gregory F.

doi:10.1086/432023

Cited by 190 publications

(236 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…It is now generally accepted that adaptive plasticity can allow populations to face environmental change. When specimens of the same species occupy different kinds of habitats, a divergent selection can work on different norms of reaction (Grether, 2005). The cryptic habitat exploited by sponges here clearly offers this opportunity, creating a more stable environment where sponges are under different selective pressure compared to the conspecific living outside the coralligenous habitat.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Comparison between the sponge fauna living outside and inside the coralligenous bioconstruction. A quantitative approach

et al. 2015

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Coralligenous habitat results from a multi-stratified accumulation of crustose coralline algae and animal builders in a dynamic equilibrium with disruptive agents. The result is a complex architecture crossed by crevices and holes. Due to this three-dimensional structure, coralligenous may host a rich and diversified fauna, more abundant than any other Mediterranean habitat. Unfortunately, very few data are available about the cryptic fauna that lives inside the conglomerate. As already reported for coral reefs, the cryptic fauna plays an important role in the exchange of material and energy between water column and benthic assemblages. Here we compare the sponge community present inside and outside the coralligenous framework of Portofino Promontory (Ligurian Sea) at different depths (15 and 30 meters) not only in terms of taxonomic diversity but for the first time also in term of biomass. Sponges present on the surface of each block were collected, weighed and identified; after blocks dissolution in HCl, target cryptic sponges were separated from other organisms, weighed, and identified. We recorded a total of 62 sponge species. The average number of sponge taxa occurring outside the coralligenous accretions is lower than the number of taxa identified inside. This pattern is confirmed also regarding sponge biomass. These results underlines that studies focused on coralligenous functioning should take in account the important contribution of cryptic fauna, as recently evidenced also for tropical reef habitats.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Comparison between the sponge fauna living outside and inside the coralligenous bioconstruction. A quantitative approach

et al. 2015

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“…Uncertainty of its importance persists because little is known about how plastic responses to new conditions affect individual fitness and phenotypic variation [25,28,42]. Also, few natural examples of plastic trait responses guiding trait evolution are known [40,43,44].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of growth by genetic accommodation in Icelandic freshwater stickleback

Robinson

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Classical Darwinian adaptation to a change in environment can ensue when selection favours beneficial genetic variation. How plastic trait responses to new conditions affect this process depends on how plasticity reveals to selection the influence of genotype on phenotype. Genetic accommodation theory predicts that evolutionary rate may sharply increase when a new environment induces plastic responses and selects on sufficient genetic variation in those responses to produce an immediate evolutionary response, but natural examples are rare. In Iceland, marine threespine stickleback that have colonized freshwater habitats have evolved more rapid individual growth. Heritable variation in growth is greater for marine full-siblings reared at low versus high salinity, and genetic variation exists in plastic growth responses to low salinity. In fish from recently founded freshwater populations reared at low salinity, the plastic response was strongly correlated with growth. Plasticity and growth were not correlated in full-siblings reared at high salinity nor in marine fish at either salinity. In well-adapted lake populations, rapid growth evolved jointly with stronger plastic responses to low salinity and the persistence of strong plastic responses indicates that growth is not genetically assimilated. Thus, beneficial plastic growth responses to low salinity have both guided and evolved along with rapid growth as stickleback adapted to freshwater.

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“…To address this we (1) analyzed the long-term data sets from South Georgia and Kerguelen within a single capture-mark-recapture framework to compare inter-population adult survival and breeding success; (2) added climatic indices in models to characterize some of the observed variance in life history traits to investigate the potential role of bethedging in the response to the environment. In longlived species, adult survival is assumed to be the trait that is most strongly related to population growth rate (Stearns and Kawecki 1994, Pfister 1998, Gaillard and Yoccoz 2003, Grether 2005. As a result, the impact of climatic fluctuations on adult survival is expected to be comparable in the two populations, while the impact on breeding success is thought to be related to the variability of the local environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bet‐hedging response to environmental variability, an intraspecific comparison

Nevoux

Forcada

Barbraud

et al. 2010

Ecology

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Abstract. A major challenge in ecology is to understand the impact of increased environmental variability on populations and ecosystems. To maximize their fitness in a variable environment, life history theory states that individuals should favor a bet-hedging strategy, involving a reduction of annual breeding performance and an increase in adult survival so that reproduction can be attempted over more years. As a result, evolution toward longer life span is expected to reduce the deleterious effects of extra variability on population growth, and consequently on the trait contributing the most to it (e.g., adult survival in longlived species). To investigate this, we compared the life histories of two Black-browed Albatross (Thalassarche melanophrys) populations breeding at South Georgia (Atlantic Ocean) and Kerguelen (Indian Ocean), the former in an environment nearly three times more variable climatically (e.g., in sea surface temperature) than the latter. As predicted, individuals from South Georgia (in the more variable environment) showed significantly higher annual adult survival (0.959, SE ¼ 0.003) but lower annual reproductive success (0.285 chick per pair, SE ¼ 0.039) than birds from Kerguelen (survival ¼ 0.925, SE ¼ 0.004; breeding success ¼ 0.694, SE ¼ 0.027). In both populations, climatic conditions affected the breeding success and the survival of inexperienced breeders, whereas the survival of experienced breeders was unaffected. The strength of the climatic impact on survival of inexperienced breeders was very similar between the two populations, but the effect on breeding success was positively related to environmental variability. These results provide rare and compelling evidence to support bet-hedging underlying changes in life history traits as an adaptive response to environmental variability.

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Environmental Change, Phenotypic Plasticity, and Genetic Compensation

Cited by 190 publications

References 45 publications

Comparison between the sponge fauna living outside and inside the coralligenous bioconstruction. A quantitative approach

Comparison between the sponge fauna living outside and inside the coralligenous bioconstruction. A quantitative approach

Evolution of growth by genetic accommodation in Icelandic freshwater stickleback

Bet‐hedging response to environmental variability, an intraspecific comparison

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