Adaptive explanations for sensitive windows in development.
Adaptive explanations for sensitive windows in development.
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DOI：
10.1186/1742-9994-12-s1-s3
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Frankenhuis WE
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fawcett TW;Frankenhuis WE
许多生物体的发育似乎显示出敏感窗口期的证据-个体发育的时期或阶段，其中个人经验对表型有特别强烈的影响(与其他时期或阶段相比)。尽管从基础和应用的角度对敏感窗口都很感兴趣，但它们进化的功能(适应性)原因尚不清楚。在这里，我们勾勒出一个概念框架，用于理解自然选择何时应该有利于整个发展过程中可塑性的变化。我们的方法建立在先前关于表型可塑性进化的理论基础上，该理论将个体和种群的可塑性差异与两个因素联系起来：对环境条件的不确定性程度和发育过程中的经验提供有关这些条件的信息的程度。我们认为，这两个因素的系统性变化通常发生在单个个体的一生中，这将选择可塑性的发育变化。最重要的是环境的信息特性如何与生物体的生命史相互作用。在发育的不同阶段，表型对环境线索可能或多或少地敏感，这是因为在(I)线索的频率、(Ii)线索的信息性、(Iii)信息的适合性益处和(或)对可塑性的限制方面的系统性变化。在相对稳定的环境中，一个合理的零期望是，随着发育中的个体收集信息，可塑性将随着年龄的增长而逐渐下降。我们回顾了最近关于可塑性发展变化演变的模型，并解释了它们如何适合我们的概念框架。我们的目标是鼓励从适应性的角度看待发展中的敏感窗口。
Development in many organisms appears to show evidence of sensitive windows—periods or stages in ontogeny in which individual experience has a particularly strong influence on the phenotype (compared to other periods or stages). Despite great interest in sensitive windows from both fundamental and applied perspectives, the functional (adaptive) reasons why they have evolved are unclear. Here we outline a conceptual framework for understanding when natural selection should favour changes in plasticity across development. Our approach builds on previous theory on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity, which relates individual and population differences in plasticity to two factors: the degree of uncertainty about the environmental conditions and the extent to which experiences during development (‘cues’) provide information about those conditions. We argue that systematic variation in these two factors often occurs within the lifetime of a single individual, which will select for developmental changes in plasticity. Of central importance is how informational properties of the environment interact with the life history of the organism. Phenotypes may be more or less sensitive to environmental cues at different points in development because of systematic changes in (i) the frequency of cues, (ii) the informativeness of cues, (iii) the fitness benefits of information and/or (iv) the constraints on plasticity. In relatively stable environments, a sensible null expectation is that plasticity will gradually decline with age as the developing individual gathers information. We review recent models on the evolution of developmental changes in plasticity and explain how they fit into our conceptual framework. Our aim is to encourage an adaptive perspective on sensitive windows in development.