Evolution LettersPub Date : 2024-05-06eCollection Date: 2024-10-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae018
Stefano Giaimo, Arne Traulsen
{"title":"Juvenile mortality and sibling replacement: a kin selection approach.","authors":"Stefano Giaimo, Arne Traulsen","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae018","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mortality generally is higher around birth and then progressively declines through the juvenile stage. In species where offspring depend upon their parents during maturation, a factor behind this mortality decline could be sibling replacement: offspring sacrifice their survival to benefit future or present siblings as early as possible in order to minimize losses in parental investment. Here, we propose a kin-selection model of sibling replacement. Theoretical analysis of the model and its application to demographic data of mammals suggest that sibling replacement consistently generates a selective incentive for increasing juvenile mortality at early ages when this mortality increment is the result of positive selection for juvenile altruism within the nuclear family. The model highlights how sibling replacement goes beyond optimal allocation of parental resources into dependents and can provoke greater mortality closer to birth also in response to a more favorable ratio of actors to recipients of altruism among siblings.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 5","pages":"647-657"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11827334/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143434120","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 : 2024-04-27eCollection Date: 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae016
Fanny Touchard, Frédérique Cerqueira, Nicolas Bierne, Frédérique Viard
{"title":"Adaptive alien genes are maintained amid a vanishing introgression footprint in a sea squirt.","authors":"Fanny Touchard, Frédérique Cerqueira, Nicolas Bierne, Frédérique Viard","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae016","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae016","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Human transport of species across oceans disrupts natural dispersal barriers and facilitates hybridization between previously allopatric species. The recent introduction of the North Pacific sea squirt, <i>Ciona robusta</i>, into the native range of the North Atlantic sea squirt, <i>Ciona intestinalis</i>, is a good example of this outcome. Recent studies have revealed an adaptive introgression in a single chromosomal region from the introduced into the native species. Here, we monitored this adaptive introgression over time, examining both the frequency of adaptive alleles at the core and the hitchhiking footprint in the shoulders of the introgression island by studying a thousand <i>Ciona</i> spp. individuals collected in 22 ports of the contact zone, 14 of which were sampled 20 generations apart. For that purpose, we developed a KASP multiplex genotyping approach, which proved effective in identifying native, nonindigenous and hybrid individuals and in detecting introgressed haplotypes. We found no early generation hybrids in the entire sample, and field observations suggest a decline in the introduced species. At the core region of the introgression sweep, where the frequency of <i>C. robusta</i> alleles is the highest and local adaptation genes must be, we observed stable frequencies of adaptive alien alleles in both space and time. In contrast, we observed erosion of <i>C. robusta</i> ancestry tracts in flanking chromosomal shoulders on the edges of the core, consistent with the second phase of a local sweep and a purge of hitchhiked incompatible mutations. We hypothesize that adaptive introgression may have modified the competition relationships between the native and invasive species in human-altered environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 4","pages":"600-609"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11291672/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141890595","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 : 2024-03-17eCollection Date: 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae011
Tianlin Duan, Zebin Zhang, Mathieu Genete, Céline Poux, Adrien Sicard, Martin Lascoux, Vincent Castric, Xavier Vekemans
{"title":"Dominance between self-incompatibility alleles determines the mating system of <i>Capsella</i> allopolyploids.","authors":"Tianlin Duan, Zebin Zhang, Mathieu Genete, Céline Poux, Adrien Sicard, Martin Lascoux, Vincent Castric, Xavier Vekemans","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae011","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae011","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The shift from outcrossing to self-fertilization is one of the main evolutionary transitions in plants and has broad effects on evolutionary trajectories. In Brassicaceae, the ability to inhibit self-fertilization is controlled by 2 genes, <i>SCR</i> and <i>SRK</i>, tightly linked within the <i>S</i>-locus. A series of small non-coding RNAs also encoded within the <i>S</i>-locus regulates the transcriptional activity of <i>SCR</i> alleles, resulting in a linear dominance hierarchy between them. In Brassicaceae, natural allopolyploid species are often self-compatible (SC) even when one of the progenitor species is self-incompatible, but the reason why polyploid lineages tend to lose self-incompatibility (SI) and the timing of the loss of SI (immediately after ancestral hybridization between the progenitor species, or at a later stage after the formation of allopolyploid lineages) have generally remained elusive. We used a series of synthetic diploid and tetraploid hybrids obtained between self-fertilizing <i>Capsella orientalis</i> and outcrossing <i>Capsella grandiflora</i> to test whether the breakdown of SI could be observed immediately after hybridization, and whether the occurrence of SC phenotypes could be explained by the dominance interactions between <i>S</i>-haplotypes inherited from the parental lineages. We used RNA-sequencing data from young inflorescences to measure allele-specific expression of the <i>SCR</i> gene and infer dominance interactions in the synthetic hybrids. We then evaluated the seed set from autonomous self-pollination in the synthetic hybrids. Our results demonstrate that self-compatibility of the hybrids depends on the relative dominance between <i>S</i>-alleles inherited from the parental species, confirming that SI can be lost instantaneously upon formation of the ancestral allopolyploid lineage. They also confirm that the epigenetic regulation that controls dominance interactions between <i>S</i>-alleles can function between subgenomes in allopolyploids. Together, our results illustrate how a detailed knowledge of the mechanisms controlling SI can illuminate our understanding of the patterns of co-variation between the mating system and changes in ploidy.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 4","pages":"550-560"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11291619/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141890597","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 : 2024-03-16eCollection Date: 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae010
Robert J Knell, Jonathan M Parrett
{"title":"Alternative reproductive tactics and evolutionary rescue.","authors":"Robert J Knell, Jonathan M Parrett","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae010","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae010","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Almost all life on earth is facing environmental change, and understanding how populations will respond to these changes is of urgent importance. One factor that is known to affect the speed by which a population can evolve when faced with changes in the environment is strong sexual selection. This increases the adaptive capacity of a population by increasing reproductive skew toward well-adapted (usually) males who will, on average, be best able to compete for matings. This effect could potentially be disrupted when males pursue alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs), whereby males within a species exhibit qualitatively different behaviors in their pursuit of matings. ARTs are diverse, but one common class is those expressed through condition-dependent polyphenism such that high-quality, well-adapted males compete aggressively for mates and low-quality, poorly adapted males attempt to acquire matings via other, nonaggressive behaviors. Here, using an individual-based modeling approach, we consider the possible impacts of ARTs on adaptation and evolutionary rescue. When the ART is simultaneous, meaning that low-quality males not only engage in contests but also pursue other tactics, adaptive capacity is reduced and evolutionary rescue, where a population avoids extinction by adapting to a changing environment, becomes less likely. This is because the use of the ART allows low-quality males to contribute more maladaptive genes to the population than would happen otherwise. When the ART is fixed, however, such that low-quality males will only use the alternative tactic and do not engage in contests, we find the opposite: adaptation happens more quickly and evolutionary rescue when the environment changes is more likely. This surprising effect is caused by an increase in the mating success of the highest quality males who face many fewer competitors in this scenario-counterintuitively, the presence of males pursuing the ART increases reproductive skew toward those males in the best condition.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 4","pages":"539-549"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11291626/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141890596","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 : 2024-03-08eCollection Date: 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae008
Mohammadali Dashtbali, Xiaoyan Long, Jonathan M Henshaw
{"title":"The evolution of honest and dishonest signals of fighting ability.","authors":"Mohammadali Dashtbali, Xiaoyan Long, Jonathan M Henshaw","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrae008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Competition over resources is often decided via aggressive interactions, which may or may not escalate to all-out fights. Weapons and body size play important roles in such interactions, as they often provide reliable cues of an individual's fighting ability. In contrast, traits like nonfunctional display \"weapons\" may dishonestly exaggerate fighting ability in order to intimidate opponents into retreating. Signals used in the context of aggressive interactions potentially evolve via very different mechanisms than courtship signals, but have received far less theoretical attention. Here, we contrast the evolution of honest and dishonest signals of fighting ability using a game-theoretic model. Contests are assumed to consist of three discrete stages: display from a distance, low-intensity physical contact, and fighting. At each stage, contestants evaluate the fighting ability of their opponents in comparison to their own based on body size and an aggressive signal. After making this evaluation, contestants decide whether to escalate the interaction or cede to their opponent. Our model predicts that both honest and dishonest aggressive signals can exaggerate far beyond their ecological optima, but that exaggeration is more pronounced for honest signals. Equilibrium levels of aggressiveness-as measured by individuals' propensity to escalate aggressive interactions to the next stage-are independent of the honesty of signals. We additionally develop a novel approach, based on causal inference theory, to understand how changes in underlying parameters shape the coevolution of multiple traits. We use this approach to study how aggression coevolves with body and signal size in response to changes in the cost of losing a fight.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 4","pages":"514-525"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11497847/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142510983","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 : 2024-03-05eCollection Date: 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae006
Baosheng Wu, Qingmiao Ren, Xiaoting Yan, Fei Zhao, Tao Qin, Peidong Xin, Xinxin Cui, Kun Wang, Rui Du, Knut H Røed, Steeve D Côté, Glenn Yannic, Zhipeng Li, Qiang Qiu
{"title":"Resequencing of reindeer genomes provides clues to their docile habits.","authors":"Baosheng Wu, Qingmiao Ren, Xiaoting Yan, Fei Zhao, Tao Qin, Peidong Xin, Xinxin Cui, Kun Wang, Rui Du, Knut H Røed, Steeve D Côté, Glenn Yannic, Zhipeng Li, Qiang Qiu","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae006","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Reindeer have long been served as vital subsistence resources for inhabitants of Arctic and subarctic regions owing to their domestication. However, the evolutionary relationships and divergence times among different reindeer populations, genetic traits that distinguish domesticated reindeer, and factors that contribute to their relative docility compared with that of other Cervidae specie, remain unclear. In this study, we sequenced the genomes of 32 individuals from wild and domestic reindeer populations that inhabit Arctic and subarctic regions. We found that reindeer experienced 2 or more independent domestication events characterized by weak artificial selection pressure and limited significant differences in genomic parameters between wild and domestic populations. Alterations in conserved noncoding elements in the reindeer genomes, particularly those associated with nervous system development, may have contributed to their domestication by rendering the nervous system less responsive. Together, our results suggest that inherent species-specific traits, rather than intense artificial selection, may have played a significant role in the relatively docile behavior of reindeer and offer valuable insights into the domestication process of these animals.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 4","pages":"494-504"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11291945/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141890629","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 : 2024-03-05eCollection Date: 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae009
Michał Aleksander Ciach, Julia Pawłowska, Paweł Górecki, Anna Muszewska
{"title":"The interkingdom horizontal gene transfer in 44 early diverging fungi boosted their metabolic, adaptive, and immune capabilities.","authors":"Michał Aleksander Ciach, Julia Pawłowska, Paweł Górecki, Anna Muszewska","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae009","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae009","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Numerous studies have been devoted to individual cases of horizontally acquired genes in fungi. It has been shown that such genes expand the hosts' metabolic capabilities and contribute to their adaptations as parasites or symbionts. Some studies have provided an extensive characterization of the horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in Dikarya. However, in the early diverging fungi (EDF), a similar characterization is still missing. In order to fill this gap, we have designed a computational pipeline to obtain a statistical sample of reliable HGT events with a low false discovery rate. We have analyzed 44 EDF proteomes and identified 829 xenologs in fungi ranging from <i>Chytridiomycota</i> to <i>Mucoromycota</i>. We have identified several patterns and statistical properties of EDF HGT. We show that HGT is driven by bursts of gene exchange and duplication, resulting in highly divergent numbers and molecular properties of xenologs between fungal lineages. Ancestrally aquatic fungi are generally more likely to acquire foreign genetic material than terrestrial ones. Endosymbiotic bacteria can be a source of useful xenologs, as exemplified by NOD-like receptors transferred to <i>Mortierellomycota</i>. Closely related fungi have similar rates of intronization of xenologs. Posttransfer gene fusions and losses of protein domains are common and may influence the encoded proteins' functions. We argue that there is no universal approach for HGT identification and inter- and intra-kingdom transfers require tailored identification methods. Our results help to better understand how and to what extent HGT has shaped the metabolic, adaptive, and immune capabilities of fungi.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 4","pages":"526-538"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11291939/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141891563","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 : 2024-03-02eCollection Date: 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae005
Amrita Bhattacharya, Anton Aluquin, David A Kennedy
{"title":"Exceptions to the rule: When does resistance evolution not undermine antibiotic therapy in human bacterial infections?","authors":"Amrita Bhattacharya, Anton Aluquin, David A Kennedy","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae005","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The use of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections often imposes strong selection for antibiotic resistance. However, the prevalence of antibiotic resistance varies greatly across different combinations of pathogens and drugs. What underlies this variation? Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and literature surveys capable of integrating data across many studies have tried to answer this question, but the vast majority of these studies have focused only on cases where resistance is common or problematic. Yet much could presumably be learned from the cases where resistance is infrequent or absent. Here we conducted a literature survey and a systematic review to study the evolution of antibiotic resistance across a wide range of pathogen-by-drug combinations (57 pathogens and 53 antibiotics from 15 drug classes). Using Akaike information criterion-based model selection and model-averaged parameter estimation we explored 14 different factors posited to be associated with resistance evolution. We find that the most robust predictors of high resistance are nosocomial transmission (i.e., hospital-acquired pathogens) and indirect transmission (e.g., vector-, water-, air-, or vehicle-borne pathogens). While the former was to be expected based on prior studies, the positive correlation between high resistance frequencies and indirect transmission is, to our knowledge, a novel insight. The most robust predictor of low resistance is zoonosis from wild animal reservoirs. We also found partial support that resistance was associated with pathogen type, horizontal gene transfer, commensalism, and human-to-human transmission. We did not find support for correlations between resistance and environmental reservoirs, mechanisms of drug action, and global drug use. This work explores the relative explanatory power of various pathogen and drug factors on resistance evolution, which is necessary to identify priority targets of stewardship efforts to slow the spread of drug-resistant pathogens.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 4","pages":"478-493"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11291617/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141890598","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 : 2024-02-06eCollection Date: 2024-06-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrae003
Hollie Marshall, Andrés G de la Filia, Ross Cavalieri, Eamonn B Mallon, John M Clark, Laura Ross
{"title":"Lack of paternal silencing and ecotype-specific expression in head and body lice hybrids.","authors":"Hollie Marshall, Andrés G de la Filia, Ross Cavalieri, Eamonn B Mallon, John M Clark, Laura Ross","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrae003","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrae003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Paternal genome elimination (PGE) is a non-Mendelian inheritance system, described in numerous arthropod species, in which males develop from fertilized eggs, but their paternally inherited chromosomes are eliminated before or during spermatogenesis. Therefore, PGE males only transmit their maternally inherited set of chromosomes to their offspring. In addition to the elimination of paternal chromosomes, diverse PGE species have also repeatedly evolved the transcriptional silencing of the paternal genome, making males effectively haploid. However, it is unclear if this paternal chromosome silencing is mechanistically linked to the chromosome elimination or has evolved at a later stage, and if so, what drives the haploidization of males under PGE. In order to understand these questions, here we study the human louse, <i>Pediculus humanus</i>, which represents an ideal model system, as it appears to be the only instance of PGE where males eliminate, but not silence their paternal chromosomes, although the latter remains to be shown conclusively. In this study, we analyzed parent-of-origin allele-specific expression patterns in male offspring of crosses between head and body lice ecotypes. We show that hybrid adult males of <i>P. humanus</i> display biparental gene expression, which constitutes the first case of a species with PGE in which genetic activity of paternal chromosomes in the soma is not affected by embryonic silencing or (partial or complete) elimination. We did however also identify a small number of maternally biased genes (potentially imprinted genes), which may be involved in the elimination of paternal chromosomes during spermatogenesis. Finally, we have identified genes that show ecotype-specific expression bias. Given the low genetic diversity between ecotypes, this is suggestive for a role of epigenetic processes in ecotype differences.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 3","pages":"455-465"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11134467/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141181025","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 : 2024-01-18eCollection Date: 2024-06-01DOI: 10.1093/evlett/qrad065
Greg M Walter, Keyne Monro, Delia Terranova, Enrico la Spina, Maria Majorana, Giuseppe Pepe, James Clark, Salvatore Cozzolino, Antonia Cristaudo, Simon J Hiscock, Jon Bridle
{"title":"Environmental effects on genetic variance are likely to constrain adaptation in novel environments.","authors":"Greg M Walter, Keyne Monro, Delia Terranova, Enrico la Spina, Maria Majorana, Giuseppe Pepe, James Clark, Salvatore Cozzolino, Antonia Cristaudo, Simon J Hiscock, Jon Bridle","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad065","DOIUrl":"10.1093/evlett/qrad065","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Adaptive plasticity allows populations to cope with environmental variation but is expected to fail as conditions become unfamiliar. In novel conditions, populations may instead rely on rapid adaptation to increase fitness and avoid extinction. Adaptation should be fastest when both plasticity and selection occur in directions of the multivariate phenotype that contain abundant genetic variation. However, tests of this prediction from field experiments are rare. Here, we quantify how additive genetic variance in a multivariate phenotype changes across an elevational gradient, and test whether plasticity and selection align with genetic variation. We do so using two closely related, but ecologically distinct, sister species of Sicilian daisy (<i>Senecio</i>, Asteraceae) adapted to high and low elevations on Mt. Etna. Using a quantitative genetic breeding design, we generated and then reciprocally planted c. 19,000 seeds of both species, across an elevational gradient spanning each species' native elevation, and then quantified mortality and five leaf traits of emergent seedlings. We found that genetic variance in leaf traits changed more across elevations than between species. The high-elevation species at novel lower elevations showed changes in the distribution of genetic variance among the leaf traits, which reduced the amount of genetic variance in the directions of selection and the native phenotype. By contrast, the low-elevation species mainly showed changes in the amount of genetic variance at the novel high elevation, and genetic variance was concentrated in the direction of the native phenotype. For both species, leaf trait plasticity across elevations was in a direction of the multivariate phenotype that contained a moderate amount of genetic variance. Together, these data suggest that where plasticity is adaptive, selection on genetic variance for an initially plastic response could promote adaptation. However, large environmental effects on genetic variance are likely to reduce adaptive potential in novel environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"8 3","pages":"374-386"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11285158/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141793813","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}