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.

表型可塑性是指单个基因型对环境变化的反应中产生不同表型的能力。如果一个种群中所有的基因型都以同样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于其上的可遗传的表型变异，从而减缓适应。相反，如果所有基因型的反应方式非常不同，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，取决于选择塑造种群对压力源的可塑性反应的时间。在这种背景下，对于适应气候变化的种群来说，可塑性对快速适应的影响可能是完全不同的，而气候变化一直是种群进化史的一部分，与适应污染物等“新的”人为环境相比。克隆生物使我们能够测试这一假设，因为我们可以将相同的基因组暴露在不同的环境中，并比较它们对个体的影响，这个项目的目的是检验这样一个假设，即对气候相关压力源的塑料反应减缓了适应，而对“新”环境的塑料反应加快了适应。这些发现的相关性将通过比较暴露于实验室压力源组合的重复人群的适应率来确定。虽然有一些实验室证据表明，新的环境暴露了神秘的遗传变异选择，我们仍然很少了解这是如何相关的自然种群，表型取决于适应性和非适应性的可塑性反应，许多环境异质性。了解这些相互作用对于预测种群如何应对环境变化至关重要。这个学生奖学金采用多种方法，包括现场和实验室技能，显微镜，图像分析和高水平的分析，以调查支持快速适应的机制。