Developmental integration and evolution of labile plasticity in a complex quantitative character in a multiperiodic...

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Developmental biology
• Quantitative genetics

Background:

• Labile plasticity in complex traits involves multiple contributing components.
• Each component has unique development rates, norms of reaction, and plasticity costs.
• Environmental adaptation, like thermal regulation in mammals, exemplifies complex plasticity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To model labile plasticity in complex quantitative characters with multiple components.
• To investigate how developmental integration among plastic components affects adaptation in periodic environments.
• To explore how evolutionary pressures shape plasticity to mitigate constraints and costs.

Main Methods:

• Mathematical modeling of labile plasticity.
• Analysis of developmental dynamics in changing, periodic environments.
• Examination of component interactions and their effect on net plasticity.

Main Results:

• Multiple plastic components can improve phenotype tracking of environmental cycles compared to single components.
• Developmental integration can amplify or inhibit environmental signals, enhancing adaptation.
• Evolution can reduce the fitness cost of plasticity by regulating component development through integrated reaction norms.

Conclusions:

• Complex trait plasticity, when integrated across multiple components, offers significant adaptive advantages in fluctuating environments.
• Developmental integration is crucial for overcoming constraints imposed by environmental frequency filtering and plasticity costs.
• Apparent maladaptation in a plastic component may be part of a larger adaptive strategy involving inter-component regulation.