EVOLUTION OF PHENOTYPIC VARIANCE

A cornerstone of evolutionary theory is that the phenotypic variance of a population may be partitioned into genetic and environmental (nonheritable) components. The traditional motivation for this distinction is that the rate of evolution under natural selection depends on the (relative) magnitudes of certain genetic components of variance. The components of variation are also interesting from another perspective, as illustrated here. Phenotypic variation may be selectively maintained in a population according to its components: selection may favor the maintenance of only the environmental components, only the genetic components, or be indifferent to the composition of the variance. Even when selection is shown to favor phenotypic variation regardless of its components, the possibility exists that environmental variance will evolve to displace the genetic components or vice versa. Environmental and genetic factors may thus compete to produce a given selected level of phenotypic variance. A test of some of these models is provided from the example of seed dormancy: the prediction that variation in seed germination time should be purely environmental is supported by the demonstration of low heritability of germination time in the two available studies.