Transgenerational plasticity is adaptive in the wild
Transgenerational plasticity is adaptive in the wild
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DOI：
10.1126/science.1148766
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发表时间：
2007-11-16
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
Etterson, Julie R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Galloway, Laura F.;Etterson, Julie R.
植物对光表现出适应性反应，但不知道亲本植物是否传递环境线索，引起后代的适应性反应。我们发现，后代的生活史（一年与两年）是由母亲的光环境（林下与光隙）的影响。这种跨代可塑性是自适应的，当后代生长在母亲的光环境，种子通常分散。种群增长的预测表明，通过母体效应适当地暗示其光环境的植物具有比其他情况大3.4倍的适应性。跨代可塑性的进化是为了应对自然光的变化，并提供了一种灵活的机制，使定居生物科普异质环境。
Plants exhibit adaptive responses to light, but it is not known whether parental plants transmit environmental cues that elicit adaptive responses in offspring. We show that offspring life history (annual versus biennial) is influenced by the maternal light environment (understory versus light gap). This transgenerational plasticity is adaptive when offspring are grown in their maternal light environment, where seeds typically disperse. Projections of population growth show that plants that are appropriately cued for their light environment through maternal effects have 3.4 times greater fitness than otherwise. Transgenerational plasticity has evolved in response to natural variation in light and provides a flexible mechanism by which sedentary organisms cope with heterogeneous environments.