The Stochastic Pacemaker: Cumulative Behavioral Noise Drives Morphological Plasticity in Pea Aphids.
Xiaomi Liu1, Kristopher Murdza1, Yuxu Feng1
1Department of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|April 10, 2026
Summary
Stochastic variation in pea aphid (Acyrthosiphon pisum) maternal behavior drives offspring wing development. Maternal movement pace influences tactile cue accumulation, impacting wing polyphenism and generating phenotypic diversity.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Developmental biology
- Behavioral ecology
Background:
- Intragenetic variation, often V error, is a biological driver of fitness, not just statistical noise.
- The mechanism linking stochasticity to deterministic developmental outcomes is poorly understood.
- Wing polyphenism in pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) provides a model to study this mechanism.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test a cumulative stochasticity model for wing polyphenism in pea aphids.
- To investigate the role of maternal locomotor behavior in cue accumulation and offspring phenotype.
- To understand how behavioral noise translates into morphological shifts.
Main Methods:
- Utilized wing polyphenism in pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) as a model system.
- Modeled the influence of maternal locomotor behavior on tactile cue accumulation.
- Quantified maternal mobility, temporal patterns of wing induction, and phenotypic variance across genotypes.
Main Results:
- Maternal locomotor activity acts as a "stochastic pacemaker," influencing offspring wing development.
- Behavioral variation explained approximately 20% of total phenotypic variance.
- Maternal mobility increased with crowding, showing temporal heteroscedasticity, magnifying stochasticity into divergence.
Conclusions:
- Individual-level niche construction, driven by behavioral history, plays a fundamental role in generating phenotypic diversity.
- V error is a dynamic product of behavioral history, not a static error term.
- Demonstrated a mechanistic link between transient behavioral noise and stable morphological changes.
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