Title: Plasticity Persistence: Does Selection Favor Plasticity in Changing Environments?
Abstract:
Phenotypic plasticity is a widespread phenomenon found across the tree of life. However, gaps remain in our understanding of how plasticity impacts the evolutionary and ecological processes of populations. Theory suggests that environmental variation can promote the evolution of plasticity in a population, nonetheless, persistence of plasticity in a population is dependent upon reliable cues and overcoming any costs of maintaining it. The presence — or lack of —plasticity in a population can therefore lead to variation in population dynamics, resulting in differing ecological and evolutionary outcomes. Duckweed, a clonal aquatic plant, has become an increasingly popular study system to explore such eco-evolutionary questions as both evolution and phenotypes can be quantified across populations. Evolving duckweed populations composed of genotypes that varied in the identity and magnitude of the plastic traits they possessed addressed two key questions: 1. Is phenotypic plasticity under selection in changing environments? 2. Is the strength of selection on plasticity stronger in some traits compared to others? Preliminary results demonstrated that populations vary in both how they evolved and what traits they expressed under the environmental conditions. These results highlight the multitude of phenotypic variation that plasticity can produce amongst genotypes and suggests the potential for plasticity to alter the evolutionary trajectories of populations.
Turcotte Lab
Wednesday November 8th, 2023
12:00PM
Langley A219B