Constraints on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity: limits and costs of phenotype and plasticity

Abstract

Phenotypic plasticity is ubiquitous and generally regarded as a key mechanism for enabling organisms to survive in the face of environmental change. Because no organism is infinitely or ideally plastic, theory suggests that there must be limits (for example, the lack of ability to produce an optimal trait) to the evolution of phenotypic plasticity, or that plasticity may have inherent significant costs. Yet numerous experimental studies have not detected widespread costs. Explicitly differentiating plasticity costs from phenotype costs, we re-evaluate fundamental questions of the limits to the evolution of plasticity and of generalists vs specialists. We advocate for the view that relaxed selection and variable selection intensities are likely more important constraints to the evolution of plasticity than the costs of plasticity. Some forms of plasticity, such as learning, may be inherently costly. In addition, we examine opportunities to offset costs of phenotypes through ontogeny, amelioration of phenotypic costs across environments, and the condition-dependent hypothesis. We propose avenues of further inquiry in the limits of plasticity using new and classic methods of ecological parameterization, phylogenetics and omics in the context of answering questions on the constraints of plasticity. Given plasticity's key role in coping with environmental change, approaches spanning the spectrum from applied to basic will greatly enrich our understanding of the evolution of plasticity and resolve our understanding of limits.

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Heredity (Edinb)

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Heredity (Edinb)

Title: Heredity

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

ISSN (Print): 0018-067X

ISSN (Electronic): 1365-2540

Publication date (Print): October 2015

Publication date (Electronic): 18 February 2015

Publication date PMC-release: 1 October 2015

Volume: 115

Issue: 4

Pages: 293-301

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Biology, College of Charleston , Charleston, SC, USA

[2 ]Department of Biology, West Chester University , West Chester, PA, USA

[3 ]Barnard College, Columbia University , New York, NY, USA

[4 ]Department of Biology, Colorado State University , Fort Collins, CO, USA

[5 ]Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Acton , Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

[6 ]Department of Biology, University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill, NC, USA

[7 ]Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona , Tucson, AZ, USA

[8 ]Ronin Institute , Montclair, NJ, USA

[9 ]Department of Biological Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA

[10 ]Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Colorado Boulder , Boulder, CO, USA

[11 ]Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota , St Paul, MN, USA

[12 ]Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Max-Planck Odense Centre on the Biodemography of Aging , Odense, Denmark

[13 ]Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut , Storrs, CT, USA

Author notes

[* ]Department of Biology, College of Charleston , 66 George Street, Charleston, SC 29424, USA. E-mail: murrenc@ 123456cofc.edu

Article

Publisher Item ID: hdy20158

DOI: 10.1038/hdy.2015.8

PMC ID: 4815460

PubMed ID: 25690179

Copyright statement: Copyright © 2015 The Genetics Society

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Categories

Subject: Review