scholarly journals Phenotypic plasticity of labile traits in the wild

2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon E. Brommer
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Quantitative Genetic ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Quantitative Genetic Parameters

Abstract Individual-based studies allow quantification of phenotypic plasticity in behavioural, life-history and other labile traits. The study of phenotypic plasticity in the wild can shed new light on the ultimate objectives (1) whether plasticity itself can evolve or is constrained by its genetic architecture, and (2) whether plasticity is associated to other traits, including fitness (selection). I describe the main statistical approach for how repeated records of individuals and a description of the environment (E) allow quantification of variation in plasticity across individuals (IxE) and genotypes (GxE) in wild populations. Based on a literature review of life-history and behavioural studies on plasticity in the wild, I discuss the present state of the two objectives listed above. Few studies have quantified GxE of labile traits in wild populations, and it is likely that power to detect statistically significant GxE is lacking. Apart from the issue of whether it is heritable, plasticity tends to correlate with average trait expression (not fully supported by the few genetic estimates available) and may thus be evolutionary constrained in this way. Individual-specific estimates of plasticity tend to be related to other traits of the individual (including fitness), but these analyses may be anti-conservative because they predominantly concern stats-on-stats. Despite the increased interest in plasticity in wild populations, the putative lack of power to detect GxE in such populations hinders achieving general insights. I discuss possible steps to invigorate the field by moving away from simply testing for presence of GxE to analyses that ‘scale up’ to population level processes and by the development of new behavioural theory to identify quantitative genetic parameters which can be estimated.

scholarly journals Opposite outcomes of coinfection at individual and population scales

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (29) ◽  
pp. 7545-7550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin E. Gorsich ◽  
Rampal S. Etienne ◽  
Jan Medlock ◽  
Brianna R. Beechler ◽  
Johannie M. Spaan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
African Buffalo ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Secondary Infections ◽  
The Individual

Coinfecting parasites and pathogens remain a leading challenge for global public health due to their consequences for individual-level infection risk and disease progression. However, a clear understanding of the population-level consequences of coinfection is lacking. Here, we constructed a model that includes three individual-level effects of coinfection: mortality, fecundity, and transmission. We used the model to investigate how these individual-level consequences of coinfection scale up to produce population-level infection patterns. To parameterize this model, we conducted a 4-y cohort study in African buffalo to estimate the individual-level effects of coinfection with two bacterial pathogens, bovine tuberculosis (bTB) and brucellosis, across a range of demographic and environmental contexts. At the individual level, our empirical results identified bTB as a risk factor for acquiring brucellosis, but we found no association between brucellosis and the risk of acquiring bTB. Both infections were associated with reductions in survival and neither infection was associated with reductions in fecundity. The model reproduced coinfection patterns in the data and predicted opposite impacts of coinfection at individual and population scales: Whereas bTB facilitated brucellosis infection at the individual level, our model predicted the presence of brucellosis to have a strong negative impact on bTB at the population level. In modeled populations where brucellosis was present, the endemic prevalence and basic reproduction number (R0) of bTB were lower than in populations without brucellosis. Therefore, these results provide a data-driven example of competition between coinfecting pathogens that occurs when one pathogen facilitates secondary infections at the individual level.

scholarly journals Individual- and population-level drivers of consistent foraging success across environments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lysanne Snijders ◽  
Ralf H. J. M. Kurvers ◽  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Indar W. Ramnarine ◽  
Jens Krause
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Foraging Success ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Individual

AbstractIndividual foraging is under strong natural selection. Yet, whether individuals differ consistently in their foraging success across environments, and which individual and population-level traits might drive such differences, is largely unknown. We addressed this question in a field experiment, conducting over 1,100 foraging trials with nine subpopulations of guppies, Poecilia reticulata, translocating them across environments in the wild. A-priori, we determined the individual social phenotypes. We show that individuals consistently differed in reaching food, but not control, patches across environments. Social individuals reached more food patches than less social ones and males reached more food patches than females. Overall, individuals were, however, more likely to join females at patches than males, which explains why individuals in subpopulations with relatively more females reached, on average, more food patches. Our results provide rare evidence for individual differences in foraging success across environments, driven by individual and population level (sex ratio) traits.

Example Four: Facultative Anadromy in Salmonid Fishes

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-92
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Dynamic State ◽  
Salmonid Fishes ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
State Variable ◽  
Level Model ◽  
Fitness Benefits ◽  
The Individual

This chapter offers a fourth example model, with the objective of (1) illustrating the application of state- and prediction-based theory (SPT) to a new kind of decision—a life history decision—in a case where dynamic state variable modeling (DSVM) has been applied successfully; and (2) describing the unique ability of models utilizing SPT to address population-level questions of particular interest to conservationists and managers. In this case, SPT produced individual-level decisions similar to those of DSVM, but including them in a population-level model led to quite different conclusions than those implied by the individual-level DSVM analysis. Salmonid fishes exhibit amazing life history diversity. One fundamental distinction among salmonid life histories is whether or not individuals migrate to the ocean. In general, facultative anadromy can be seen as an adaptive behavior that trades off the fitness benefits of going to the ocean versus those of remaining resident. The anadromy versus residency decision is important to fish conservation and resource management.

Sex-ratio variation and the function of staminodes in Aralia nudicaulis1This article is part of a Special Issue entitled “Pollination biology research in Canada: Perspectives on a mutualism at different scales”.

Botany ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 90 (7) ◽  
pp. 575-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emony I.E. Nicholls ◽  
Marcel E. Dorken
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Light Availability ◽  
Reproductive Function ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Pollination Biology ◽  
Forest Understory ◽  
Pollen Receipt ◽  
Forested Ecosystems

Aralia nudicaulis L. is a clonal dioecious herb common to forested ecosystems in eastern North America. Across 15 sites, the frequency of female ramets ranged between 5% and 95%. This variation was used to examine hypotheses involving the life history and pollination biology of A. nudicaulis. Because female reproductive function is thought to incur greater resource costs than male function, we predicted that female ramets should (i) be more common where resources (and light in particular) are more abundant and (ii) have lower rates of survival than male ramets. However, there was (i) no significant association between light availability (measured as canopy closure) and female frequencies across sites and (ii) ramet ages were skewed towards older ages for females, not males. Female A. nudicaulis produce staminodes that render female inflorescences visually similar to male inflorescences. We experimentally manipulated the presence–absence of staminodes and found that pollen receipt by females without staminodes was substantially lower than for plants with intact staminodes. Finally, pollinators tend to prefer visiting male over female flowers. We were interested in evaluating whether such preferences might scale up to the population level, with higher pollinator abundances at male-dominated sites. However, we instead found a strong positive association between pollinator abundances and female frequencies. Although there is unlikely to be a causal relationship between them, the identification of a common variable underlying variation in female frequencies and pollinator abundances might reveal key insights into the factors regulating the life history and pollination of forest understory plants.

scholarly journals Environmental change effects on life history traits and population dynamics of anadromous fishes

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza ◽  
André M. de Roos
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Life History ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Fish Population ◽  
Breeding Habitat ◽  
Energetic Cost ◽  
Life History Stages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual

AbstractMigration, the recurring movement of individuals between a breeding and a non-breeding habitat, is a widespread phenomenon in the animal kingdom. Since the life cycle of migratory species involves two habitats, they are particularly vulnerable to environmental change, which may affect either of these habitats as well as the travel between them. In this study, we investigate the consequences of environmental change affecting older life history stages for the population dynamics and the individual life history of a migratory population. In particular, we use a theoretical approach to study how increased energetic cost of the breeding travel and reduced survival and food availability in the non-breeding habitat affect an anadromous fish population. These unfavorable conditions have impacts at individual and population level. First, when conditions deteriorate individuals in the breeding habitat have a higher growth rate as a consequence of reductions in spawning that reduce competition. Second, population abundance decreases, and its dynamics change from stable to oscillations with a period of four years. The oscillations are caused by the density-dependent feedback between individuals within a cohort through the food abundance in the breeding habitat, which results in alternation of a strong and a weak cohort. Our results explain how environmental change, by affecting older life history stages, has multiple consequences for other life stages and for the entire population. We discuss these results in the context of empirical data and highlight the need for mechanistic understanding of the interactions between life history and population dynamics in response to environmental change.

scholarly journals Deciphering hybrid larch reaction norms using random regression

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Marchal ◽  
Carl D. Schlichting ◽  
Rémy Gobin ◽  
Philippe Balandier ◽  
Frédéric Millier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Genetic Parameters ◽  
Parental Species ◽  
Ring Width ◽  
Reaction Norms ◽  
Random Regression ◽  
Hybrid Larch ◽  
Quantitative Genetic ◽  
Quantitative Genetic Parameters

ABSTRACTThe link between phenotypic plasticity and heterosis is a broad fundamental question, with stakes in breeding. We report a case-study evaluating temporal series of wood ring traits of hybrid larch (Larix decidua×L. kaempferiand reciprocal) in relation to soil water availability. Growth rings record the tree plastic responses to past environmental conditions, and we used random regressions to estimate the reaction norms of ring width and wood density with respect to water availability. We investigated the role of phenotypic plasticity on the construction of hybrid larch heterosis and on the expression of its quantitative genetic parameters. The data came from an intra-/interspecific diallel mating design between both parental species. Progenies were grown in two environmentally contrasted sites, in France. Ring width plasticity with respect to water availability was confirmed, as all three taxa produced narrower rings under the lowest water availability. Hybrid larch appeared to be the most plastic taxon as its superiority over its parental species increased with increasing water availability. Despite the low heritabilities of the investigated traits, we found that the quantitative genetic parameters varied along the water availability gradient. Finally, by means of a complementary simulation, we demonstrated that random regression can be applied to model the reaction norms of non-repeated records of phenotypic plasticity bound by a family structure. Random regression is a powerful tool for the modeling of reaction norms in various contexts, especially perennial species.

scholarly journals Estimating quantitative genetic parameters in wild populations: a comparison of pedigree and genomic approaches

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (14) ◽  
pp. 3434-3451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camillo Bérénos ◽  
Philip A. Ellis ◽  
Jill G. Pilkington ◽  
Josephine M. Pemberton
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Parameters ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Quantitative Genetic ◽  
Quantitative Genetic Parameters

scholarly journals Phenotypic Plasticity and Selection: Nonexclusive Mechanisms of Adaptation

Scientifica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Grenier ◽  
P. Barre ◽  
I. Litrico
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Adaptive Plasticity ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
Population Survival ◽  
Mechanisms Of Adaptation ◽  
The Individual

Selection and plasticity are two mechanisms that allow the adaptation of a population to a changing environment. Interaction between these nonexclusive mechanisms must be considered if we are to understand population survival. This review discusses the ways in which plasticity and selection can interact, based on a review of the literature on selection and phenotypic plasticity in the evolution of populations. The link between selection and phenotypic plasticity is analysed at the level of the individual. Plasticity can affect an individual’s response to selection and so may modify the end result of genetic diversity evolution at population level. Genetic diversity increases the ability of populations or communities to adapt to new environmental conditions. Adaptive plasticity increases individual fitness. However this effect must be viewed from the perspective of the costs of plasticity, although these are not easy to estimate. It is becoming necessary to engage in new experimental research to demonstrate the combined effects of selection and plasticity for adaptation and their consequences on the evolution of genetic diversity.

scholarly journals Population position along the fast-slow life-history continuum predicts intraspecific variation in actuarial senescence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Cayuela ◽  
Jean-François Lemaître ◽  
Eric Bonnaire ◽  
Julian Pichenot ◽  
Benedikt R. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Intraspecific Variation ◽  
Population Variation ◽  
Life History Strategies ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Captive Populations ◽  
Bombina Variegata ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Capture Recapture

AbstractPatterns of actuarial senescence can be highly variable among species. Previous comparative analyses revealed that both age at the onset of senescence and rates of senescence are linked to the species’ position along the fast-slow life-history continuum. As there are few long-term datasets of wild populations with known-age individuals, intraspecific (i.e. between-population) variation in senescence is understudied and limited to comparisons of wild and captive populations of the same species, mostly birds and mammals. In this paper, we examined how population position along the fast-slow life history continuum affects senescence patterns in an amphibian, Bombina variegata. We used capture-recapture data collected in four populations with contrasted life history strategies. Senescence trajectories were drawn using Bayesian capture-recapture models. We show that in “slow” populations the onset of senescence was earlier and individuals aged at a faster rate than individuals in “fast” populations. Our study provides one of the few empirical examples of between-population variation in senescence patterns in the wild and confirms that the fast-slow life history gradient is associated with both macroevolutionary and microevolutionary patterns of senescence.

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