Does phenotypic plasticity help or hinder rapid adaptation?

表型可塑性有助于还是阻碍快速适应？

• 批准号: 2441924
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Liverpool
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2441924
• 关键词: Does; phenotypic; plasticity; help; hinder

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a single genotype to make different phenotypes inresponse to environmental variation. If all genotypes in a population respond to anenvironmental change in the same way plasticity can diminish the heritable phenotypicvariation that selection acts on and slow down adaptation. In contrast, if all genotypesrespond in very different ways, plasticity may speed up rapid adaptation. Whether or notplasticity helps or hinders adaptation therefore depends on the time that selection has had toshape the plastic responses of a population to the stressor it is facing. In this context, theeffect that plasticity has on rapid adaptation could be quite different for populations adaptingto aspects of climate change that have always been part of a population's evolutionaryhistory, compared with adaptation to 'novel' anthropogenic environments such as pollutants.Clonal organisms allow us to test this hypothesis because we can expose the same genomesto different environments and compare the effect that they have on individuals, populationsand communities.The aim of this project is to test the hypothesis that plastic responses to climate-relatedstressors slows down adaptation whereas plastic responses to 'novel' environments speeds itup. The relevance of these findings will be determined by comparing rates of adaptation inreplicated populations exposed to combinations of stressors in the laboratory. Although thereis some laboratory evidence that novel environments expose cryptic genetic variation toselection, we still have little understanding of how relevant this is in natural populations,where phenotypes depend on adaptive and non-adaptive plastic responses to manyenvironmental heterogeneities. Understanding these interactions is critical for predicting howpopulations respond to environmental change. This studentship applies diverse approaches,including field and laboratory skills, microscopy, image analysis, and high-level statisticalanalysis to investigate the mechanisms underpinning rapid adaptation.

表型可塑性是单个基因型响应环境变化而产生不同表型的能力。如果一个群体中的所有基因型都以相同的方式对环境变化做出反应，那么可塑性就会减少选择作用的可遗传表型变异，并减缓适应速度。相反，如果所有基因型的反应方式截然不同，那么可塑性可能会加速快速适应。因此，可塑性是否有助于或阻碍适应，取决于选择必须塑造种群对其所面临的压力源的可塑性反应的时间。在这种情况下，与适应污染物等“新的”人类环境相比，可塑性对快速适应的影响对于适应气候变化方面的种群来说可能是完全不同的，这些气候变化一直是种群进化史的一部分。克隆生物使我们能够检验这一假设，因为我们可以将相同的基因组暴露于不同的环境中，并比较它们对个体、种群和社区的影响。 该项目旨在检验以下假设：塑料对气候相关压力源的反应会减慢适应速度，而塑料对“新”环境的反应会加速适应速度。这些发现的相关性将通过比较实验室中暴露于压力源组合的复制群体的适应率来确定。尽管有一些实验室证据表明新的环境将隐秘的遗传变异暴露给选择，但我们仍然对这在自然群体中的相关性知之甚少，其中表型取决于对许多环境异质性的适应性和非适应性可塑性反应。了解这些相互作用对于预测人群如何应对环境变化至关重要。该学生项目采用多种方法，包括现场和实验室技能、显微镜、图像分析和高水平统计分析，以研究支撑快速适应的机制。