Sex-specific plasticity in a trophic polymorphic aquatic predator: a modeling approach

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Ecology
• Animal behavior

Background:

• Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of an organism to change its phenotype in response to environmental changes, is widespread in animals.
• Sexual size dimorphism, where males and females differ in size, is also common and thought to result from sex-specific fitness trade-offs.
• The genetic basis of plasticity suggests its potential magnitude can vary individually, and potentially between sexes due to differential selection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if differential selection on males and females can lead to unequal genetically determined plasticity potential.
• To evaluate this hypothesis in Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis), a species with known sexual size dimorphism and habitat-related plasticity.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 500-year simulations of an ecogenetic agent-based model to explore the evolution of plasticity potential.
• Incorporated sex-specific life-history differences and varying costs of plasticity (growth and survival) into the model.
• Conducted in situ morphological analyses of Eurasian perch to compare with model predictions.

Main Results:

• The model demonstrated that genetically determined morphological plasticity potential can evolve differently between male and female Eurasian perch.
• This divergence in plasticity potential led to greater realized morphological variation between habitats for one sex compared to the other.
• In situ morphological data supported model predictions, showing greater realized morphological variation between habitats for females than males.

Conclusions:

• Sex-specific selective pressures can drive the evolution of unequal genetically defined plasticity potential between males and females.
• Differences in plasticity potential between sexes may be a common evolutionary feature across diverse animal taxa.
• This study highlights the complex interplay between genetics, environment, and sex in shaping phenotypic variation.