Bond, MN, Piertney, SB, Benton, TG orcid.org/0000-0002-7448-1973 et al. (1 more author) (2021) Plasticity is a locally adapted trait with consequences for ecological dynamics in novel environments. Ecology and Evolution, 11 (16). pp. 10868-10879. ISSN 2045-7758
Abstract
Phenotypic plasticity is predicted to evolve in more variable environments, conferring an advantage on individual lifetime fitness. It is less clear what the potential consequences of that plasticity will have on ecological population dynamics. Here, we use an invertebrate model system to examine the effects of environmental variation (resource availability) on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity in two life history traits—age and size at maturation—in long-running, experimental density-dependent environments. Specifically, we then explore the feedback from evolution of life history plasticity to subsequent ecological dynamics in novel conditions. Plasticity in both traits initially declined in all microcosm environments, but then evolved increased plasticity for age-at-maturation, significantly so in more environmentally variable environments. We also demonstrate how plasticity affects ecological dynamics by creating founder populations of different plastic phenotypes into new microcosms that had either familiar or novel environments. Populations originating from periodically variable environments that had evolved greatest plasticity had lowest variability in population size when introduced to novel environments than those from constant or random environments. This suggests that while plasticity may be costly it can confer benefits by reducing the likelihood that offspring will experience low survival through competitive bottlenecks in variable environments. In this study, we demonstrate how plasticity evolves in response to environmental variation and can alter population dynamics—demonstrating an eco-evolutionary feedback loop in a complex animal moderated by plasticity in growth.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | age-at-maturity; competition; density dependence; eco-evolutionary dynamics; evolution; life history traits; phenotypic plasticity; size-at-maturity |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/C510467/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 11 Aug 2021 10:55 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:44 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley Open Access |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/ece3.7813 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:176947 |