Journal of Evolutionary Biology最新文献

{"title":"A field experiment assessing the roles of drought, herbivory, and local climate on cyanogenesis cline formation and local adaptation in Trifolium repens.","authors":"Lucas J Albano, Courtney M Patterson, Evan J Kidder, Nicholas J Kooyers, Marc T J Johnson","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voag008","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jeb/voag008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Projecting how populations will adapt to environmental changes requires a mechanistic understanding of selection imposed by various biotic and abiotic factors. In white clover (Trifolium repens), clines in an antiherbivore defence mechanism, hydrogen cyanide (HCN), form via variation in selection imposed by the environment. However, the specific environmental factors that select for or against chemical defence phenotypes in white clover remain unresolved. We performed a field experiment, including a factorial manipulation of precipitation and herbivory at high and low latitude study sites. These factors are hypothesized to be important in driving HCN cline formation, so we investigated their effects on fitness of a white clover F3 recombinant population, segregating for the alleles underlying the HCN defence phenotype. We found precipitation and herbivory did not drive differential selection on HCN or its metabolic components, although the strength of our conclusions about precipitation was impacted by the limited effectiveness of this treatment. Independent of the manipulations, HCN phenotypes did not exhibit the expected latitudinally dependent fitness advantages based on observed HCN clines. Instead, we found that possession of an individual metabolic component of HCN, cyanogenic glycosides, resulted in a fitness advantage, even when lacking the ability to produce HCN, and that this advantage was most prominent at the northern study site, where cyanogenic glycosides are rarer. These results suggest additional physiological roles of cyanogenic glycosides in adaptation of white clover to its environment. This study highlights the importance of experimental manipulations to understand the, often unexpected, ways selection acts on phenotypic traits in natural populations.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":"535-551"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146214745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cytoplasmic male sterility and mitochondrial metabolism: evidence for low complex I contribution in male-sterile freshwater snail Physa acuta.","authors":"Sophie Bererd, Damien Roussel, Sandrine Plénet, Loïc Teulier, Antoine Stier, Emilien Luquet","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voag022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voag022","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is a well-known example of mitonuclear genetic conflict over sex determination in hermaphrodite plants, where mitochondrial genes maternally inherited sterilize the male function while biparental inherited nuclear genes restore it. CMS has been recently discovered in wild animals, in the freshwater snail Physa acuta. In this species, CMS is associated with two extremely divergent mitogenomes D and K compared to the classical mitogenome N. D individuals are male-steriles, while male fertility is restored in K individuals. We hypothesized that the extreme divergence of mitogenomes associated with CMS can impact mitochondrial aerobic metabolism, a necessary process in eukaryotic organisms by which energy is transduced from food to ATP. Our results suggest that CMS might be associated with an alteration of co-encoded complex I in D male-sterile individuals, although partly compensated by the nuclear-encoded complex II. K restored hermaphrodites have an unaffected complex I respiration, but exhibit higher mitochondrial proton leak and higher relative anaerobic contribution to cellular metabolism, suggesting an energy cost of bearing CMS and restorer genes, which could underlie the reduced growth of K mitotype. How complex I alteration might induce male-sterility remains to be determined, but could be linked to oxidative stress or a defect in ATP-synthesis rate.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147582832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Conflicting optical and mechanical needs drive the evolution of wing membrane thickness in Ithomiini clearwing butterflies.","authors":"Doris Gomez, Charline Pinna, Violaine Ossola, Oscar Affholder, Christine Andraud, Serge Berthier, Stephan Borensztajn, Marianne Elias","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voag019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voag019","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Transparency provides benefits to prey animals as it makes them less detectable by predators. Transparent animals are often thin, which raises the question of their fragility. In clearwing Lepidoptera, the wing thickness is the evolutionary result of conflicting optical and mechanical needs. All else being equal, a thinner membrane lets light better go through, can still sustain the reduced scales it often bears, it has a low stiffness, which is advantageous for flight, but it resists less to fatigue and failure, a crucial point. An evolutionary way out of these conflicting needs can be spatial heterogeneity in stiffness, with thicker opaque patches compensating for thinner transparent ones, especially when transparency covers a great wing surface proportion. We tested these predictions in Ithomiine butterflies, a tribe comprising closely-related opaque and transparent unpalatable species. We found that species with partially transparent wings have a thinner membrane in the transparent zone than in the opaque one, which likely helps light getting through and agrees with the lighter weight wings have to support in the transparent zone. Despite this difference between opaque and transparent zones, among transparent species the more transparent ones surprisingly have a thicker membrane in their transparent zone. We find no relationship between membrane thickness and scale density, ruling out a predominant role of membrane thickness as a mechanical support for scales. Finally, species with a higher wing proportion occupied by transparency have thicker membranes on their transparent patch, and a greater ratio in thickness between opaque and transparent zones. These latter two results support the hypothesis that clearwing butterflies with larger transparent patches are potentially more fragile and that this frailty is offset by thicker surrounding opaque patches offering higher mechanical resistance, like tubules framing a kite sail. In clearwing butterflies, wing membrane thickness has likely evolved under optical and mechanical selective pressures and further research should experimentally measure the costs, if any, of thinner transparent membranes.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147516534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Genetic variation of the effects of spontaneous mutation on size at birth.","authors":"Matthew R Bruner, Trenton C Agrelius, Krista B Harmon, Jeffry L Dudycha","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voag020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voag020","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spontaneous mutation underlies all genetic variation, and thus influences the evolutionary dynamics of complex traits. Although much work has estimated mutation rates for fitness or at molecular scales, we have comparatively little information about mutational influences on other complex phenotypes. We conducted four mutation accumulation experiments with independent clones of Daphnia pulex, and then measured the effect of spontaneous mutation on size at birth, a complex trait whose connection to fitness depends on ecologically-mediated tradeoffs. Therefore it is unclear whether mutations, which are usually neutral or deleterious, should decrease or increase size at birth. In two experiments, individual instances of increased size at birth were common, whereas in the other two experiments, instances of decreased size at birth were common. Together, our data show that genetic background is an important determinant of the consequences of mutation for complex traits, and that mutation rates and direction can vary within species.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147516486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does genetic variation in controlled experiments predict phenology of wild plants?","authors":"Victoria L DeLeo, David L Des Marais, Claire M Lorts, Thomas E Juenger, Jesse R Lasky","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voaf140","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jeb/voaf140","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Phenology and the timing of development are often under selection. However, the relative contributions of genotype, environment, and prior developmental transitions to variance in the phenology of wild plants is largely unknown. Individual components of phenology (e.g., germination) might be loosely related with the timing of maturation due to variation in prior developmental transitions. Given widespread evidence that genetic variation in life history is adaptive, we investigated to what degree experimentally measured genetic variation in Arabidopsis phenology predicts phenology of plants in the wild. As a proxy of phenology, we obtained collection dates from nature of 227 naturally inbred Arabidopsis thaliana accessions from across Eurasia. We compared this phenology in nature with experimental data on the descendant inbred lines that we synthesized from two new and 155 published controlled experiments. We tested whether the genetic variation in flowering and germination timing from experiments predicted the phenology of the same lines in nature. We found that genetic variation in phenology from controlled experiments significantly predicts day of collection from wild individuals, as a proxy for date of flowering, across Eurasia. However, local variation in collection dates within a region was not explained by genetic variance in phenology in experiments, suggesting high plasticity across small-scale environmental gradients or complex interactions between the timing of different developmental transitions. While experiments have shown phenology is under selection, understanding the subtle environmental and stochastic effects on phenology may help to clarify the heritability and evolution of phenological traits in nature.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":"327-342"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145543810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A formal theory of group-level adaptation for obligate eusociality.","authors":"Kalyani Z Twyman, Andy Gardner","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voaf141","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jeb/voaf141","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Darwin argued that natural selection leads organisms to appear as if they are striving to maximize their fitness. This idea is readily recognized at the individual cell or body level, but such adaptive design may also manifest at some higher levels of biological organization. Previous work has formalized the idea that social groups can be viewed as adaptive individuals in their own right-i.e., \"superorganisms\"-under the assumptions that within-group selection is absent and that there is no class structure. However, the original and most common biological use of the term \"superorganism\" is in reference to insect colonies in which members exhibit striking class structure in the form of reproductive division of labour. Accordingly, although obligately eusocial colonies are regularly conceptualized as having the capacity for colony-level adaptation, current formalisms are unable to support this idea. Here, we develop a formal theory of group-level adaptation for obligately eusocial colonies by establishing mathematical correspondences that connect the dynamics of natural selection-as described by Price's equation-to the mathematics of optimization-wherein the colony is considered a fitness-maximizing agent-under a range of assumptions as to which members of the colony control its phenotype and the degree to which they are genetically related.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":"343-351"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145543727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparative studies on genetic differentiation between two closely related species of Drosophila, D. bipectinata and D. malerkotliana.","authors":"Gurvachan Singh, Arvind Kumar Singh, Anurag Kumar Tiwari","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voaf142","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jeb/voaf142","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Drosophila bipectinata and D. malerkotliana are two closely related species that share common ecological niches throughout their distribution zone which comes under Oriental-Australian zoogeographical regions. These two species have been found to share several common genetic characteristics and due to this, they may experience interspecific mating under laboratory conditions and produce hybrid progeny. The population genetical work on these two species has been inadequately done by considering inversions and enzyme polymorphisms. We decided to consider the genetic polymorphism involving commonly persistent chromosomal inversions, allozymes, and microsatellite variants of the two species to envisage genetic differentiation among the natural populations of these two species sampled from distant localities of Indian cities. The results of this study indicate that Indian populations of both the species are genetically structured. There exists graded variation (clinal variation) in the level of heterozygosity from north to south as an increase in the observed heterozygosity prevailed from north to south. This trend was observed in the populations of both the species that hints towards similar genetic changes being experienced by its members all along their distribution area. The phylogenetic trees based on the extent of genetic identity between the paired populations of these two species portray two distinct clusters, one for the two populations of north and the other for the remaining populations of south. Further, through this study, it can be stated with certainty that there exists \"isolation by distance\" as the north and south populations of both the species genetically significantly vary from each other.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":"352-361"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145543749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Genetic variance in reproductive timing contributes to trait evolvability.","authors":"Philipp Mitteroecker","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voaf145","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jeb/voaf145","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The additive genetic variance of a quantitative trait usually is interpreted as a measure of its evolvability, i.e., its capacity for adaptive evolution. However, in populations with overlapping generations, evolvability is also affected by the parental age at reproduction because genotypes that reproduce earlier evolve faster than genotypes with later reproduction. I show here that directional selection of a phenotypic trait inevitably links it with relative age at reproduction and thus developmental timing, whether or not age at reproduction affects reproductive success. In turn, the evolved genetic covariance between the selected trait and reproductive age accelerates the evolutionary response of the trait mean, unless counteracted by strong selection for late reproduction. Hence, not only the genetic variance of the trait but also the genetic variance in age at reproduction contributes to a trait's evolvability, even if the trait was initially unrelated to age at reproduction. I further show that stable generation time requires selection of intermediate strength for later reproduction and that episodes of strong selection tend to shorten average generation time. After a proof of principle by individual-based simulations, I present a formalization of this theory in a quantitative genetic framework, leading to a relatively simple extension of the breeder's equation. Finally, I discuss empirical evidence and implications for senescence and life history evolution.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":"362-371"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145607316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The evolution of a placenta is not linked to increased brain size in poeciliid fishes.","authors":"Piotr K Rowiński, Joacim Näslund, Will Sowersby, Simon Eckerström-Liedholm, Björn Rogell","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voaf147","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jeb/voaf147","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Maternal investment is hypothesized to have a direct influence on the size of energetically costly organs, including the brain. In placental organisms, offspring are supplied with nutrients during prenatal development, potentially modulating brain size. Previous research has predominantly focused on mammalian species that exhibit both pre- and postnatal provisioning, in which effects on brain size have been observed during both developmental stages. Here, using 8 poeciliid fish species, we test if those species with placental structures (i.e., matrotrophy) invest more resources into offspring brain development than species without placental structures (i.e., lecithotrophy). The prediction is that matrotrophy may entail higher nutrient provisioning rates to the developing embryo, resulting in larger offspring brain sizes, compared to species with a lecithotrophic strategy. To test this prediction, we took non-invasive brain size measurements during the first 4 weeks of life, comparing these to somatic growth measurements. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find any differences in brain size between the 2 maternal strategies in poeciliids. Furthermore, we did not find any differences in how relative brain size changed over ontogenetic development between placental and non-placental species. In contrast to the marsupial/placental transition, the fish species investigated here only exhibit prenatal provisioning, which may reduce the potential for maternal investment into brain size. Consequently, our results suggest that coevolution between placental structures and juvenile brain size is not a general pattern in vertebrates.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":"385-393"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145726819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The evolutionary potential of symbiosis.","authors":"Trey J Scott","doi":"10.1093/jeb/voaf152","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jeb/voaf152","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Symbiosis is considered a source of evolutionary innovation. Example innovations that have evolved in symbioses include new organs, morphological adaptations, and metabolic abilities. However, it is unknown whether symbiosis is special with respect to generating innovation. In other words, does having a symbiotic partner tend to result in more innovation relative to not having a partner? Here, I argue that there are 2 gaps standing in the way of understanding the role of symbiosis in the evolution of innovation: (1) we have not rigorously quantified whether symbiosis tends to increase innovation and (2) we have not fully articulated evolutionary mechanisms that operate differently in symbiosis that could lead to more innovation. To overcome these gaps, I suggest that experimental evolution and comparative methods can be used to quantify whether symbiosis is a source of innovation. I then describe some unique features of symbiosis that promote (or hinder) the evolution of innovations through effects on evolvability. Measuring innovation and integrating concepts of evolvability into the study of symbiotic interactions will allow us to understand when and how symbiosis drives innovation.</p>","PeriodicalId":50198,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Evolutionary Biology","volume":" ","pages":"315-326"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145812345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}