Selection favors adaptive plasticity in a long-term reciprocal transplant experiment

Spatial and temporal environmental variation can favor the evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity, such that genotypes alter their phenotypes in response to local conditions to maintain fitness across heterogeneous landscapes. When individuals show greater fitness in one habitat than another, asymmetric migration can restrict adaptation to the lower quality environment. In these cases, selection is predicted to favor traits that enhance fitness in the higher-quality (source) habitat at the expense of fitness in the marginal (sink) habitat. Here, we test whether plasticity is adaptive in a system regulated by demographic source-sink dynamics. Vaccinium elliottii (Ericaceae) occurs in dry upland and flood-prone bottomland forests throughout the southeastern United States, but has larger populations and higher average individual fitness in upland sites. We conducted a multi-year field experiment to evaluate whether plasticity in foliar morphology increases survival and lifespan. Both across and within habitats, selection favored plasticity in specific leaf area, stomatal density, and leaf size. Stabilizing selection acted on plasticity in stomatal density within habitats, suggesting that extreme levels of plasticity are disadvantageous. Thus, even in systems driven by source-sink dynamics, temporal and spatial variation in conditions across the landscape and within habitat types can favor the evolution of plasticity.