Variation in Continuous Reaction Norms: Quantifying Directions of Biological Interest

Izem, Rima; Kingsolver, Joel G.

doi:10.1086/431314

Cited by 166 publications

(300 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…As expected, it has its theoretical foundations, biomathematical models, genetic components and numerous specific applications in biological disciplines ( Fig. 1) concerned with the problem of adaptation to heterogeneous environments ( (Simons & Wagner 2007;Huey & Kingsolver 1989;Izem & Kingsolver 2005;; Gomulkiewic and Kirkpatrick (Gomulkiewic & Kirkpatrick 1992;Scheiner & Lyman 1989;Van Tienderen 1991;Falconer 1990;Bierzychudek 1989;Bull 1987;Via 1987;Via & Lande 1987;Via & Lande 1985;Schlichting & Levin 1986;Schlichting & Levin 1984;Scheiner & Goodnight 1984;Freeman 1973;Bradshaw 1965)). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Hormesis provides a generalized quantitative estimate of biological plasticity

Calabrese

Mattson

2011

J. Cell Commun. Signal.

206

107

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Phenotypic plasticity represents an environmentallybased change in an organism's observable properties. Since biological plasticity is a fundamental adaptive feature, it has been extensively assessed with respect to its quantitative features and genetic foundations, especially within an ecological evolutionary framework. Toxicological investigations on the dose-response continuum (i.e., very broad dose range) that include documented evidence of the hormetic dose response zone (i.e., responses to doses below the toxicological threshold) can be employed to provide a quantitative estimate of phenotypic plasticity. The low dose hormetic stimulation is an adaptive response that reflects an environmentally-induced altered phenotype and provides a quantitative estimate of biological plasticity. Analysis of nearly 8,000 dose responses within the hormesis database indicates that quantitative features of phenotypic plasticity are highly generalizable, being independent of biological model, endpoint measured and chemical/physical stress inducing agent. The magnitude of phenotype changes indicative of plasticity is modest with maximum responses typically being approximately 30-60% greater than control values. The present findings provide the first quantitative estimates of biological plasticity and its capacity for generalization. Summary This article provides the first quantitative estimate of biological plasticity that may be generalized across plant, microbial, animal systems, and across all levels of biological organization. The quantitative features of plasticity are described by the hormesis dose response model. These findings have important biological, biomedical and evolutionary implications.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Hormesis provides a generalized quantitative estimate of biological plasticity

Calabrese

Mattson

2011

J. Cell Commun. Signal.

206

107

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“…Recent studies continue to advance the theoretical (Gabriel et al, 2005;Izem and Kingsolver, 2005;Leimar, 2005;West-Eberhard, 2005;Zhang, 2005) and empirical (Pigliucci et al, 2003;Nussey et al, 2005;Wayne et al, 2005) understanding of the evolution of phenotypic plasticity and reaction norms, but for the most part evolutionary biology has not yet incorporated rapidly accumulating knowledge of genetic determinants of plastic quantitative traits (e.g. Alonso-Blanco et al, 2005;Mackay and Lyman, 2005; but see Knies et al, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

Quantitative and evolutionary biology of alternative splicing: how changing the mix of alternative transcripts affects phenotypic plasticity and reaction norms

Marden

2006

Heredity

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Alternative splicing (AS) of pre-messenger RNA is a common phenomenon that creates different transcripts from a single gene, and these alternative transcripts affect phenotypes. The majority of AS research has examined tissue and developmental specificity of expression of particular AS transcripts, how this specificity affects cell function, and how aberrant AS is related to disease. Few studies have examined quantitative between-individual variation in AS within a cell or tissue type, or in relation to phenotypes, but the results are compelling: quantitative variation in AS affects plastic traits such as stress, anxiety, fear, egg production, muscle performance, energetics and plant growth. Genomic analyses of AS are also at a nascent stage, but have revealed a number of significant evolutionary patterns. Growing knowledge of upstream genes and kinases that regulate AS provides the as-yet little explored potential to examine how these genes and pathways respond to environmental and genotype variables. Research in this area can provide glimpses of a labyrinth of genetic architectures that have rarely been considered in evolutionary and organismal biology, or in quantitative genetics. The scarcity of contribution to knowledge about AS from these fields is illustrated by the fact that heritability of quantitative variation in AS has not yet been determined for any gene in any organism. New research tactics that incorporate quantitative analyses of AS will allow organismal and evolutionary biologists to attain a fuller mechanistic understanding of many of the traits they study, and may lead to more rapid discovery of functionally important polymorphisms.

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“…Loess smoothing techniques (Shipley and Hunt, 1996), were recently introduced for the characterization of complex norms of reaction (Simons and Wagner, 2007) and are used here for this purpose. This technique avoids the limitations associated with assumptions of linear or other simple norms of reaction (Izem and Kingsolver, 2005;Simons and Wagner, 2007). In addition, to obtain information on field conditions, soil surface temperatures at selected sites were monitored continuously throughout one year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%