Evolution LettersPub Date : 2024-01-15eCollection Date: 2024-06-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrad069
Keita Saito, Masahito Tsuboi, Yuma Takahashi
{"title":"Developmental noise and phenotypic plasticity are correlated in <i>Drosophila simulans</i>.","authors":"Keita Saito, Masahito Tsuboi, Yuma Takahashi","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad069","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrad069","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Non-genetic variation is the phenotypic variation induced by the differential expression of a genotype in response to varying environmental cues and is broadly categorized into two types: phenotypic plasticity and developmental noise. These aspects of variation have been suggested to play an important role in adaptive evolution. However, the mechanisms by which these two types of non-genetic variations influence the evolutionary process are currently poorly understood. Using a machine-learning-based phenotyping tool, we independently quantified phenotypic plasticity and developmental noise in the wing morphological traits of the fruit fly <i>Drosophila simulans.</i> Utilizing a rearing experiment, we demonstrated plastic responses in both wing size and shape as well as non-zero heritability of both phenotypic plasticity and developmental noise, which suggests that adaptive phenotypic plasticity can evolve via genetic accommodation in the wing morphology of <i>D. simulans</i>. We found a positive correlation between phenotypic plasticity and developmental noise, while the correlation between the plastic response to three kinds of environmental factors that were examined (nutrient condition, temperature, and light-dark cycle) was poor. These results suggest that phenotypic plasticity and developmental noise contribute to evolvability in a similar manner, however, the mechanisms that underlie the correspondence between these two types of variation remain to be elucidated.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11134469/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141180843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Evolution LettersPub Date : 2024-01-11eCollection Date: 2024-06-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrad068
Helena Mendes Ferreira, Denise Araujo Alves, Lloyd Cool, Cintia Akemi Oi, Ricardo Caliari Oliveira, Tom Wenseleers
{"title":"Toward greater realism in inclusive fitness models: the case of caste fate conflict in insect societies.","authors":"Helena Mendes Ferreira, Denise Araujo Alves, Lloyd Cool, Cintia Akemi Oi, Ricardo Caliari Oliveira, Tom Wenseleers","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad068","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrad068","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the field of social evolution, inclusive fitness theory has been successful in making a wide range of qualitative predictions on expected patterns of cooperation and conflict. Nevertheless, outside of sex ratio theory, inclusive fitness models that make accurate quantitative predictions remain relatively rare. Past models dealing with caste fate conflict in insect societies, for example, successfully predicted that if female larvae can control their own caste fate, an excess should opt to selfishly develop as queens. Available models, however, were unable to accurately predict levels of queen production observed in <i>Melipona</i> bees-a genus of stingless bees where caste is self-determined-as empirically observed levels of queen production are approximately two times lower than the theoretically predicted ones. Here, we show that this discrepancy can be resolved by explicitly deriving the colony-level cost of queen overproduction from a dynamic model of colony growth, requiring the incorporation of parameters of colony growth and demography, such as the per-capita rate at which new brood cells are built and provisioned, the percentage of the queen's eggs that are female, costs linked with worker reproduction and worker mortality. Our revised model predicts queen overproduction to more severely impact colony productivity, resulting in an evolutionarily stable strategy that is approximately half that of the original model, and is shown to accurately predict actual levels of queen overproduction observed in different <i>Melipona</i> species. Altogether, this shows how inclusive fitness models can provide accurate quantitative predictions, provided that costs and benefits are modeled in sufficient detail and are measured precisely.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11134464/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141180966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Riccardo Poloni, Marina Dhennin, Johanna Mappes, Mathieu Joron, Ossi Nokelainen
{"title":"Exploring polymorphism in a palatable prey: predation risk and frequency dependence in relation to distinct levels of conspicuousness","authors":"Riccardo Poloni, Marina Dhennin, Johanna Mappes, Mathieu Joron, Ossi Nokelainen","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrad071","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Camouflage and warning signals are different antipredator strategies, which offer an excellent opportunity to study the evolutionary forces acting on prey appearance. Edible prey often escape detection via camouflage, which usually leads to apostatic selection favoring rare morphs. By contrast, defended prey often display conspicuous coloration acting as warning signals to predators, which usually leads to positive frequency dependence and signal uniformity. However, when two morphs of the same species vary greatly in conspicuousness, the maintenance of both cryptic and conspicuous forms in profitable prey populations remains enigmatic. Using the white and melanic morphs of the invasive box tree moth (Cydalima perspectalis) presented at three different frequencies, we investigate (a) the palatability of caterpillars and adult moths to birds, (b) predation rates on the less conspicuous melanic morph, and (c) the role of frequency dependence in balancing morph frequencies. Our results show that caterpillars are distasteful for birds but not adult moths that are fully palatable. We found that the less conspicuous, melanic morph, benefits from reduced predation due to its lower detectability. The more conspicuous, white morph, instead, is more predated and is best off when common, suggesting positive frequency dependence. These results offer new insights into the evolution of color polymorphism and prey defenses in a polymorphic moth species. Further investigation is required to understand the role of different predation regimes on the maintenance of the polymorphism in this species and test whether additional selection pressures operate in natural populations.","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139626058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Evolution LettersPub Date : 2024-01-10eCollection Date: 2024-06-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrad072
Martin M Turcotte, Nancy Kaufmann, Katie L Wagner, Taylor A Zallek, Tia-Lynn Ashman
{"title":"Neopolyploidy increases stress tolerance and reduces fitness plasticity across multiple urban pollutants: support for the \"general-purpose\" genotype hypothesis.","authors":"Martin M Turcotte, Nancy Kaufmann, Katie L Wagner, Taylor A Zallek, Tia-Lynn Ashman","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad072","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrad072","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Whole-genome duplication is a common macromutation with extensive impacts on gene expression, cellular function, and whole-organism phenotype. As a result, it has been proposed that polyploids have \"general-purpose\" genotypes that perform better than their diploid progenitors under stressful conditions. Here, we test this hypothesis in the context of stresses presented by anthropogenic pollutants. Specifically, we tested how multiple neotetraploid genetic lineages of the mostly asexually reproducing greater duckweed (<i>Spirodela polyrhiza</i>) perform across a favorable control environment and 5 urban pollutants (iron, salt, manganese, copper, and aluminum). By quantifying the population growth rate of asexually reproducing duckweed over multiple generations, we found that across most pollutants, but not all, polyploidy decreased the growth rate of actively growing propagules but increased that of dormant ones. Yet, when considering total propagule production, polyploidy increased tolerance to most pollutants, and polyploids maintained population-level fitness across pollutants better than diploids. Furthermore, broad-sense genetic correlations in growth rate among pollutants were all positive in neopolyploids but not so for diploids. Our results provide a rare test and support for the hypothesis that polyploids are more tolerant of stressful conditions and can maintain fitness better than diploids across heterogeneous stresses. These results may help predict that polyploids may be likely to persist in stressful environments, such as those caused by urbanization and other human activities.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11134461/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141180964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Evolution LettersPub Date : 2023-12-29eCollection Date: 2024-06-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrad063
Silas Tittes, Christopher Weiss-Lehman, Nolan C Kane, Ruth A Hufbauer, Nancy C Emery, Brett A Melbourne
{"title":"Evolution is more repeatable in the introduction than range expansion phase of colonization.","authors":"Silas Tittes, Christopher Weiss-Lehman, Nolan C Kane, Ruth A Hufbauer, Nancy C Emery, Brett A Melbourne","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad063","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrad063","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>How repeatable is evolution at genomic and phenotypic scales? We studied the repeatability of evolution during 8 generations of colonization using replicated microcosm experiments with the red flour beetle, <i>Tribolium castaneum</i>. Based on the patterns of shared allele frequency changes that occurred in populations from the same generation or experimental location, we found adaptive evolution to be more repeatable in the introduction and establishment phases of colonization than in the spread phase, when populations expand their range. Lastly, by studying changes in allele frequencies at conserved loci, we found evidence for the theoretical prediction that range expansion reduces the efficiency of selection to purge deleterious alleles. Overall, our results increase our understanding of adaptive evolution during colonization, demonstrating that evolution can be highly repeatable while also showing that stochasticity still plays an important role.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11134456/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141180849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Evolution LettersPub Date : 2023-12-28eCollection Date: 2024-02-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrad066
Hanna Nomoto, Simone Fior, Jake Alexander
{"title":"Competitors alter selection on alpine plants exposed to experimental climate change.","authors":"Hanna Nomoto, Simone Fior, Jake Alexander","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad066","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrad066","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Investigating how climate change alters selection regimes is a crucial step toward understanding the potential of populations to evolve in the face of changing conditions. Previous studies have mainly focused on understanding how changing climate directly influences selection, while the role of species' interactions has received little attention. Here, we used a transplant experiment along an elevation gradient to estimate how climate warming and competitive interactions lead to shifts in directional phenotypic selection on morphology and phenology of four alpine plants. We found that warming generally imposed novel selection, with the largest shifts in regimes acting on specific leaf area and flowering time across species. Competitors instead weakened the selection acting on traits that was imposed directly by warming. Weakened or absent selection in the presence of competitors was largely associated with the suppression of absolute means and variation of fitness. Our results suggest that although climate change can impose strong selection, competitive interactions within communities might act to limit selection and thereby stymie evolutionary responses in alpine plants facing climate change.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10871967/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139900701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexandre Mestre, R. Butlin, Joaquin Hortal, M. Rafajlović
{"title":"Adaptive colonization across a parasitism–mutualism gradient","authors":"Alexandre Mestre, R. Butlin, Joaquin Hortal, M. Rafajlović","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrad061","url":null,"abstract":"Adaptive colonization is a process wherein a colonizing population exhibits an adaptive change in response to a novel environment, which may be critical to its establishment. To date, theoretical models of adaptive colonization have been based on single-species introductions. However, given their pervasiveness, symbionts will frequently be co-introduced with their hosts to novel areas. We present an individual-based model to investigate adaptive colonization by hosts and their symbionts across a parasite–mutualist continuum. The host must adapt in order to establish itself in the novel habitat, and the symbiont must adapt to track evolutionary change in the host. First, we classify the qualitative shifts in the outcome that can potentially be driven by non-neutral effects of the symbiont–host interaction into three main types: parasite-driven co-extinction, parasite release, and mutualistic facilitation. Second, we provide a detailed description of a specific example for each type of shift. Third, we disentangle how the interplay between symbiont transmissibility, host migration, and selection strength determines: (a) which type of shift is more likely to occur and (b) the size of the interaction effects necessary to produce it. Overall, we demonstrate the crucial role of host and symbiont dispersal scales in shaping the impacts of parasitism and mutualism on adaptive colonization.","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139162046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. C. Urban, J. Swaegers, R. Stoks, R. Snook, Sarah P. Otto, Daniel W A Noble, M. Moiron, M. Hällfors, Miguel Gómez-Llano, Simone Fior, J. Cote, A. Charmantier, Elvire Bestion, David Berger, Julian Baur, Jake M. Alexander, M. Saastamoinen, Allan H. Edelsparre, C. Teplitsky
{"title":"When and how can we predict adaptive responses to climate change?","authors":"M. C. Urban, J. Swaegers, R. Stoks, R. Snook, Sarah P. Otto, Daniel W A Noble, M. Moiron, M. Hällfors, Miguel Gómez-Llano, Simone Fior, J. Cote, A. Charmantier, Elvire Bestion, David Berger, Julian Baur, Jake M. Alexander, M. Saastamoinen, Allan H. Edelsparre, C. Teplitsky","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrad038","url":null,"abstract":"Predicting if, when, and how populations can adapt to climate change constitutes one of the greatest challenges in science today. Here, we build from contributions to the special issue on evolutionary adaptation to climate change, a survey of its authors, and recent literature to explore the limits and opportunities for predicting adaptive responses to climate change. We outline what might be predictable now, in the future, and perhaps never even with our best efforts. More accurate predictions are expected for traits characterized by a well-understood mapping between genotypes and phenotypes and traits experiencing strong, direct selection due to climate change. A meta-analysis revealed an overall moderate trait heritability and evolvability in studies performed under future climate conditions but indicated no significant change between current and future climate conditions, suggesting neither more nor less genetic variation for adapting to future climates. Predicting population persistence and evolutionary rescue remains uncertain, especially for the many species without sufficient ecological data. Still, when polled, authors contributing to this special issue were relatively optimistic about our ability to predict future evolutionary responses to climate change. Predictions will improve as we expand efforts to understand diverse organisms, their ecology, and their adaptive potential. Advancements in functional genomic resources, especially their extension to non-model species and the union of evolutionary experiments and “omics,” should also enhance predictions. Although predicting evolutionary responses to climate change remains challenging, even small advances will reduce the substantial uncertainties surrounding future evolutionary responses to climate change.","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139213839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Senescence evolution under the catastrophic accumulation of deleterious mutations","authors":"T. G. Aubier, Matthias Galipaud","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrad050","url":null,"abstract":"For aging to evolve, selection against mortality must decrease with age. This prevailing view in the evolutionary theory of senescence posits that mutations with deleterious effects happening late in life—when purging selection is weak—may become fixed via genetic drift in the germline, and produce a senescent phenotype. Theory, however, has focused primarily on growing populations and the fate of single deleterious mutations. In a mathematical model, we demonstrate that relaxing both of these simplifying assumptions leads to unrealistic outcomes. In density-regulated populations, previously fixed deleterious mutations should promote the fixation of other deleterious mutations that lead to senescence at ever younger ages, until death necessarily occurs at sexual maturity. This sequential fixation of deleterious mutations is not promoted by a decrease in population size, but is due to a change in the strength of selection. In an individual-based model, we also show that such evolutionary dynamics should lead to the extinction of most populations. Our models therefore make rather unrealistic predictions, underlining the need for a reappraisal of current theories. In this respect, we have further assumed in our models that the deleterious effects of mutations can only occur at certain ages, marked, for instance, by somatic or physiological changes. Under this condition, we show that the catastrophic accumulation of deleterious mutations in the germline can stop. This new finding emphasizes the importance of investigating somatic factors, as well as other mechanisms underlying the deleterious effects of mutations, to understand senescence evolution. More generally, our model therefore establishes that patterns of senescence in nature depend not only on the decrease in selection strength with age but also on any mechanism that stops the catastrophic accumulation of mutations.","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139231294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Kujala, K. Avia, Timo A Kumpula, Hanni Kärkkäinen, Juha Heikkinen, K. Kärkkäinen, Outi Savolainen
{"title":"Within- and between-population comparisons suggest independently acting selection maintaining parallel clines in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)","authors":"S. Kujala, K. Avia, Timo A Kumpula, Hanni Kärkkäinen, Juha Heikkinen, K. Kärkkäinen, Outi Savolainen","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrad054","url":null,"abstract":"Parallel clines in traits related to adaptation in a species can be due to independent selection on a pair of traits, or due to selection in one trait resulting in a parallel cline in a correlated trait. To distinguish between the mechanisms giving rise to parallel adaptive population divergence of multiple traits along an environmental gradient we need to study variation, correlations, and selective forces within individual populations along the gradient. In many tree species, budset timing (BST) forms a latitudinal cline, and parallel clinal variation is also found in other seedling traits, such as first-year height (FYH) and fall frost injury (FFI). In this study, we set up a common garden experiment with open pollinated progeny from natural populations of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), with one large sample from single population (500 families) and smaller samples from across a latitudinal gradient. BST, FYH and induced FFI were first measured in a greenhouse. The seedlings were then planted in the field, where survival and height were measured at the age of 9 years as fitness proxies. We compared between- and within-population variation and genetic correlations of these three seedling traits, and estimated selection gradients at the family level in our main population, taking into account the potential effects of seed weight. Between-population genetic correlations between seedling traits were high (0.76–0.95). Within-population genetic correlations in the main population were lower (0.14–0.35), as in other populations (0.10–0.39). Within population, extensive adaptive variation persists in the seedling traits, in line with rather weak selection gradients, yet maintaining the clines. Although our sampling does not cover the whole cline equally, the results suggest that the individual clines in these traits are maintained by largely independently acting selection, which results in fewer constraints in adaptation under changing climate.","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139233066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}