Plasticity-Mediated Persistence in New and Changing Environments

Abstract

Baldwin's synthesis of the Organicist position, first published in 1896 and elaborated in 1902, sought to rescue environmentally induced phenotypes from disrepute by showing their Darwinian significance. Of particular interest to Baldwin was plasticity's mediating role during environmental change or colonization—plastic individuals were more likely to successfully survive and reproduce in new environments than were nonplastic individuals. Once a population of plastic individuals had become established, plasticity could further mediate the future course of evolution. The evidence for plasticity-mediated persistence (PMP) is reviewed here with a particular focus on evolutionary rescue experiments, studies on invasive success, and the role of learning in survival. Many PMP studies are methodologically limited, showing that preexistent plasticity has utility in new environments (soft PMP) rather than directly demonstrating that plasticity is responsible for persistence (hard PMP). An ideal PMP study would be able to demonstrate that (1) plasticity preexisted environmental change, (2) plasticity was fortuitously beneficial in the new environment, (3) plasticity was responsible for individual persistence in the new environment, and (4) plasticity was responsible for population persistence in succeeding generations. Although PMP is not ubiquitous, Baldwin's hypotheses have been largely vindicated in theoretical and empirical studies, but much work remains.

Phenotypic plasticity facilitates initial colonization of a novel environment

“…First, plasticity may allow more colonizing individuals to survive and establish a population that can then become locally adapted to the new environmental conditions (Crispo ; Muschick et al. ; Morris ). Second, plasticity itself may evolve quite quickly in the first generations to facilitate local adaptation (Price et al.…”

“…The scarcity of direct evidence for either of these roles for plasticity, however, has led to intense debates over the last 30 years about the importance of plasticity (Laland et al. ; Morris ). Furthermore, novel environments can perturb normal development resulting in nonadaptive plasticity (Steinger et al.…”

“…Phenotypic plasticity, the capacity of a genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to different environments (Schlichting and Pigliucci 1998;Pigliucci 2001;DeWitt and Scheiner 2004), has long been assumed to facilitate population persistence in novel environments (e.g., Baldwin 1896; Morgan 1896; Williams et al 1995;Price et al 2003;Parsons and Robinson 2006;Morris 2014;Ragland et al 2015;Colautti et al 2017). The rationale for this assumption is that novel environments can be challenging for organisms if the ancestral phenotypes are poorly matched to the new conditions.…”

Etho-Eco-Morphological Mismatches, an Overlooked Phenomenon in Ecology, Evolution and Evo-Devo That Supports ONCE (Organic Nonoptimal Constrained Evolution) and the Key Evolutionary Role of Organismal Behavior

“…The ideas presented in the paragraphs above are supported by various types of empirical data presented in a well-documented review done by Morris (2014). For instance, benthic and limnetic three-spined sticklebacks are relatively nonplastic in the anatomical features that distinguish them.…”

Changing environmental gradients over forty years alter ecomorphological variation in Guadalupe Bass Micropterus treculii throughout a river basin

“…However, anthropogenic disturbance has disrupted these natural gradients and established novel gradients along which populations must respond. Mechanisms of response vary from shifting ranges (Case & Taper, 2000), dispersal across ranges (Horváth, Vad, & Ptacnik, 2016;Kendall, Bjørnstad, Bascompte, Keitt, & Fagan, 2000), adaptation (Jackson & Colmer, 2005), or plasticity in trait response (Bell & Sultan, 1999;Morris, 2014). However, anthropogenic disturbances often occur more rapidly than the pace of these mechanisms.…”