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Phenotypic plasticity and experimental evolution.

Theodore Garland¹, Scott A Kelly

¹Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. tgarland@ucr.edu

The Journal of Experimental Biology

|May 30, 2006

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Directional selection can favor increased phenotypic plasticity, enabling genotypes to adapt to varying environments. Studies on fruit flies and mice show enhanced plasticity in response to prolonged selection experiments, suggesting a key evolutionary adaptation.

Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Quantitative genetics
Animal behavior

Background:

Directional selection typically increases the mean of a selected trait.
A less-explored prediction is that selection may favor increased phenotypic plasticity.
Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a genotype to produce different phenotypes across environments.

Purpose of the Study:

To review empirical evidence for the evolution of phenotypic plasticity under directional selection.
To investigate if selection experiments can inadvertently select for enhanced plasticity.
To examine plasticity differences in selected and control lines of mice.

Main Methods:

Review of existing studies on Drosophila and mice.
Analysis of selective breeding experiments for high voluntary activity in mice.

Related Experiment Videos

Testing plasticity differences by housing selected and control mice with/without wheel access.

Main Results:

Some traits, like GLUT4 transporter concentration in mice, showed enhanced plasticity.
Observed patterns included no training effects, similar changes, greater changes in selected lines, and opposite directions of change.
Greater plasticity in selected mouse lines was sometimes explained by higher activity levels ('more pain, more gain'), but often reflected inherently greater plasticity.

Conclusions:

Directional selection can indeed favor alleles that increase phenotypic plasticity.
Selection experiments with non-instantaneous selective events should assess for evolved plasticity.
Enhanced plasticity can be a significant component of the evolutionary response to selection.