The Bogert effect, a factor in evolution

Abstract

Behavior is one of the major architects of evolution: by behaviorally modifying how they interact with their environments, organisms can influence natural selection, amplifying it in some cases and dampening it in others. In one of the earliest issues of Evolution, Charles Bogert proposed that regulatory behaviors (namely thermoregulation) shield organisms from selection and limit physiological evolution. Here, I trace the history surrounding the origin of this concept (now known as the "Bogert effect" or "behavioral inertia"), and its implications for physiological and evolutionary research throughout the 20th century. A key follow-up study in the early 21st century galvanized renewed interest in Bogert's classic ideas, and established a focus on slowdowns in the rate of evolution in response to regulatory behaviors. I illustrate recent progress on the Bogert effect in evolutionary research, and discuss the ecological variables that predict whether and how strongly the phenomenon unfolds. Based on these discoveries, I provide hypotheses for the Bogert effect across several scales: patterns of trait evolution within and among groups of species, spatial effects on the phenomenon, and its importance for speciation. I also discuss the inherent link between behavioral inertia and behavioral drive through an empirical case study linking the phenomena. Modern comparative approaches can help put the macroevolutionary implications of behavioral buffering to the test: I describe progress to date, and areas ripe for future investigation. Despite many advances, bridging microevolutionary processes with macroevolutionary patterns remains a persistent gap in our understanding of the Bogert effect, leaving wide open many avenues for deeper exploration.

Exceptional parallelisms characterize the evolutionary transition to live birth in phrynosomatid lizards

“…Differences in the slopes of these relationships, by contrast, are supported when the phylogenetic half-life ( t 1/2 ) of the model is bounded away from zero, implying phylogenetic inertia, or a lag in physiological adaptation to the thermal environment. Such lags are consistent with the Bogert effect, in which behavioral preferences disrupt physiological adaptation to prevailing environmental conditions 120 – 122 . Under this scenario, shifts in the thermal environment are predicted to be weakly associated with shifts in thermal physiology.…”

The Effect of Thermally Robust Ballistic Mechanisms on Climatic Niche in Salamanders

“…The presence of an elastic-based mechanism may also allow individuals to rely less on behavioral-mediated temperature adjustments, which have been extensively documented in ectotherms ( Bogert 1949 ; Farallo et al. 2018 ; Muñoz and Losos 2018 ; Burress and Muñoz 2022 ; Muñoz 2022 ). Though behavioral changes can allow organisms to evade thermal stress, this strategy is not without significant ecological costs in the form of time and energy ( Huey 1974 ; Vickers et al.…”

Maternal behavioural thermoregulation facilitated evolutionary transitions from egg laying to live birth

“…Such behavioural flexibility enables females to upregulate their body temperature to maintain embryos at significantly warmer temperatures than the external environment, contributing to the adaptive value of viviparity 2,7,8,25,26 . In turn, the ability to cope with a greater range of temperature conditions has the potential to allow populations to persist and expand into suboptimal environments 27 . Female thermoregulatory behaviour therefore appears to be a key adaptation that helps resolve thermal mismatches between adults and embryos and facilitate the expansion of reptiles into a variety of environments.…”