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Parental effects and the evolution of phenotypic memory.
B Kuijper1,2, R A Johnstone3
1CoMPLEX, Center of Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology, University College London, London, UK.
Journal of Evolutionary Biology
|October 23, 2015
Summary
Parental effects, a form of nongenetic inheritance, evolve differently based on habitat stability. Stable environments favor positive parental effects, while unstable ones favor negative parental effects, influencing offspring phenotype transmission.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Ecology
- Genetics
Background:
- Nongenetic inheritance, including parental and grandparental effects, is increasingly recognized.
- The specific ecological conditions driving the evolution of these heritable effects are not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically explore the evolution of parental effects in a structured population experiencing local environmental changes.
- To determine how habitat stability and environmental variability influence the direction and fidelity of parental effects.
Main Methods:
- Modeling the evolution of parental effects in a patch-structured population.
- Analyzing the conditions under which parental effects are favored over bet-hedging strategies.
- Investigating the impact of environmental stability and abundance on parental effect transmission.
Main Results:
- Parental effects are favored when selection produces an offspring mix dependent on parental phenotype, unlike bet-hedging.
- Positive parental effects (parent-offspring similarity) are favored in stable habitats with equally abundant environmental states.
- Unstable habitats favor negative parental effects, with transmission fidelity sensitive to environmental state asymmetries.
Conclusions:
- Ecological conditions, particularly habitat stability and environmental variability, critically shape the evolution of nongenetic inheritance.
- Parental effects can lead to long-term heritable phenotypes, with the direction and fidelity contingent on environmental dynamics.
- Understanding these dynamics is key to comprehending the persistence and adaptive significance of nongenetic inheritance.
Keywords:
dispersalenvironmental stochasticityepigeneticsinclusive fitnessinherited informationmaternal effectsnongenetic inheritancephenotypic plasticitytheorytransgenerational effectsMore Related Videos
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