scholarly journals Adaptive developmental plasticity: Compartmentalized responses to environmental cues and to corresponding internal signals provide phenotypic flexibility

BMC Biology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Rita A Mateus ◽  
Manuel Marques-Pita ◽  
Vicencio Oostra ◽  
Elvira Lafuente ◽  
Paul M Brakefield ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Phenotypic Flexibility ◽  
Adaptive Developmental Plasticity

Assessment

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jane West-Eberhard
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Phase Polymorphism ◽  
Aesthetic Sense ◽  
Adaptive Assessment ◽  
Important Barrier ◽  
Symbiotic Microorganism ◽  
Adaptive Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Adaptive Switch

A book on developmental plasticity needs a chapter on assessment, if only to show that adaptive environmental assessment occurs. Skepticism regarding the ability of nonhuman organisms to assess conditions well enough to make adaptive decisions has a long history in evolutionary biology, and it has been an important barrier to understanding the evolution of adaptive developmental plasticity. It is worth briefly reviewing this history in order to understand certain preconceptions about assessment that still persist. In the nineteenth century, critics of Darwin’s theory of sexual selection (Darwin, 1871) balked at the idea of an “aesthetic sense” in lowly creatures that would enable female choice of mates (representative papers are reprinted and discussed in Bajema, 1984). Later, the barrier persisted for other reasons. Even though naturalists routinely used the condition-appropriate expression of phenotypic traits to support adaptation hypotheses—a practice that assumes adaptive assessment of conditions as it is defined here—theoretically inclined biologists paid little attention to the question of facultatively expressed traits. Part of the difficulty lay in the problem of explaining how adaptive assessment could evolve within the framework of conventional genetics. Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the twentieth century’s leading evolutionary biologists, acknowledged this unresolved problem in remarks following a lecture by J. S. Kennedy on the phase polyphenisms of migratory locusts (Kennedy, 1961). Dobzhansky referred to the “challenge to a geneticist” of explaining the adaptive switch between the sedentary and the migratory phenotypes of the locusts, which had been shown to be largely independent of genotype. He suggested that an extrachromosomal factor may be involved, a symbiotic microorganism that acts as a “plasmagene” whose multiplication would eventually stimulate phase change. Although Dobzhansky’s proposal was no more preposterous than some of the regulatory devices that have actually been discovered, Kennedy (1961) minced no words in his reply to this suggestion: . . . [W]e need not feel obliged to invoke a second organism to explain [phase polymorphism] unless we are reluctant to concede an important part to the environment as well as to heredity in moulding development. . . .

scholarly journals Genome-Wide Epigenetic Signatures of Adaptive Developmental Plasticity in the Andes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ainash Childebayeva ◽  
Jaclyn M Goodrich ◽  
Fabiola Leon-Velarde ◽  
Maria Rivera-Chira ◽  
Melisa Kiyamu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dna Methylation ◽  
Genetic Variation ◽  
High Altitude ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Hypoxia Inducible Factor ◽  
Adaptation To Hypoxia ◽  
High Altitude Adaptation ◽  
Altitude Adaptation ◽  
Epigenetic Signatures ◽  
Adaptive Developmental Plasticity

Abstract High-altitude adaptation is a classic example of natural selection operating on the human genome. Physiological and genetic adaptations have been documented in populations with a history of living at high altitude. However, the role of epigenetic gene regulation, including DNA methylation, in high-altitude adaptation is not well understood. We performed an epigenome-wide DNA methylation association study based on whole blood from 113 Peruvian Quechua with differential lifetime exposures to high altitude (>2,500) and recruited based on a migrant study design. We identified two significant differentially methylated positions (DMPs) and 62 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) associated with high-altitude developmental and lifelong exposure statuses. DMPs and DMRs were found in genes associated with hypoxia-inducible factor pathway, red blood cell production, blood pressure, and others. DMPs and DMRs associated with fractional exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) also were identified. We found a significant association between EPAS1 methylation and EPAS1 SNP genotypes, suggesting that local genetic variation influences patterns of methylation. Our findings demonstrate that DNA methylation is associated with early developmental and lifelong high-altitude exposures among Peruvian Quechua as well as altitude-adaptive phenotypes. Together these findings suggest that epigenetic mechanisms might be involved in adaptive developmental plasticity to high altitude. Moreover, we show that local genetic variation is associated with DNA methylation levels, suggesting that methylation associated SNPs could be a potential avenue for research on genetic adaptation to hypoxia in Andeans.

scholarly journals Fluctuating environments during early development can limit adult phenotypic flexibility: insights from an amphibious fish

2020 ◽  
Vol 223 (16) ◽  
pp. jeb228304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia S. Rossi ◽  
Paige V. Cochrane ◽  
Patricia A. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Locomotor Performance ◽  
Phenotypic Flexibility ◽  
Adult Fish ◽  
Fluctuating Environments ◽  
Ventricle Size

ABSTRACTThe interaction between developmental plasticity and the capacity for reversible acclimation (phenotypic flexibility) is poorly understood, particularly in organisms exposed to fluctuating environments. We used an amphibious killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) to test the hypotheses that organisms reared in fluctuating environments (i) will make no developmental changes to suit any one environment because fixing traits to suit one environment could be maladaptive for another, and (ii) will be highly phenotypically flexible as adults because their early life experiences predict high environmental variability in the future. We reared fish under constant (water) or fluctuating (water–air) environments until adulthood and assessed a suite of traits along the oxygen cascade (e.g. neuroepithelial cell density and size, cutaneous capillarity, gill morphology, ventricle size, red muscle morphometrics, terrestrial locomotor performance). To evaluate the capacity for phenotypic flexibility, a subset of adult fish from each rearing condition was then air-exposed for 14 days before the same traits were measured. In support of the developmental plasticity hypothesis, traits involved with O2 sensing and uptake were largely unaffected by water–air fluctuations during early life, but we found marked developmental changes in traits related to O2 transport, utilization and locomotor performance. In contrast, we found no evidence supporting the phenotypic flexibility hypothesis. Adult fish from both rearing conditions exhibited the same degree of phenotypic flexibility in various O2 sensing- and uptake-related traits. In other cases, water–air fluctuations attenuated adult phenotypic flexibility despite the fact that phenotypic flexibility is hypothesized to be favoured when environments fluctuate. Overall, we conclude that exposure to environmental fluctuations during development in K. marmoratus can dramatically alter the constitutive adult phenotype, as well as diminish the scope for phenotypic flexibility in later life.

Adaptive developmental plasticity in snakes

Nature ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 431 (7006) ◽  
pp. 261-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabien Aubret ◽  
Richard Shine ◽  
Xavier Bonnet
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Adaptive Developmental Plasticity

Rudiment resorption as a response to starvation during larval development in the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis

2018 ◽  
Vol 96 (10) ◽  
pp. 1178-1185
Author(s):  
A. Singh ◽  
L. Pinto ◽  
C. Martin ◽  
N. Rutherford ◽  
A. Ragunathan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Larval Development ◽  
Sea Urchin ◽  
Strongylocentrotus Droebachiensis ◽  
Phenotypic Change ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Phenotypic Flexibility ◽  
Window Of Opportunity ◽  
Developmental Processes ◽  
First Time ◽  
Developmental Window

Phenotypic flexibility (reversible phenotypic change) enables organisms to couple internal, ontogenetic responses with external, environmental cues. Phenotypic flexibility also provides organisms with the capacity to buffer stereotypical internal, developmental processes from unpredictable external, ecological events. Echinoids exhibit dramatic phenotypic flexibility in response to variation in exogenous nutrient supplies. The extent to which echinoids display this flexibility has been explored incompletely and research hitherto has been conducted predominantly on larval structures and morphologies. We investigated experimentally the extent to which the primordial juvenile, the developing rudiment, can exhibit the first phase in phenotypic flexibility among individuals. We report for the first time on rudiment regression and complete resorption as a response to starvation during larval development in the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis (O.F. Müller, 1776) and identify a developmental “window of opportunity” within which this can occur. Based on our observations and previous suggestions, we speculate that sea urchin rudiments might provide means of buffering development during unfavorable conditions.

Genomic architecture of a genetically assimilated seasonal color pattern

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 370 (6517) ◽  
pp. 721-725
Author(s):  
Karin R. L. van der Burg ◽  
James J. Lewis ◽  
Benjamin J. Brack ◽  
Richard A. Fandino ◽  
Anyi Mazo-Vargas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Color Pattern ◽  
Chromatin Accessibility ◽  
Junonia Coenia ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Genetic Trait ◽  
Transduction Mechanisms ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Cue Detection ◽  
Wing Coloration

Developmental plasticity allows genomes to encode multiple distinct phenotypes that can be differentially manifested in response to environmental cues. Alternative plastic phenotypes can be selected through a process called genetic assimilation, although the mechanisms are still poorly understood. We assimilated a seasonal wing color phenotype in a naturally plastic population of butterflies (Junonia coenia) and characterized three responsible genes. Endocrine assays and chromatin accessibility and conformation analyses showed that the transition of wing coloration from an environmentally determined trait to a predominantly genetic trait occurred through selection for regulatory alleles of downstream wing-patterning genes. This mode of genetic evolution is likely favored by selection because it allows tissue- and trait-specific tuning of reaction norms without affecting core cue detection or transduction mechanisms.

scholarly journals Adaptive shaping of the behavioural and neuroendocrine phenotype during adolescence

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1849) ◽  
pp. 20162784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias D. Zimmermann ◽  
Sylvia Kaiser ◽  
Michael B. Hennessy ◽  
Norbert Sachser
Keyword(s):  
Population Density ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Guinea Pigs ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Temporal Window ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Aggressive Phenotype ◽  
Adaptive Developmental Plasticity

Environmental conditions during early life can adaptively shape the phenotype for the prevailing environment. Recently, it has been suggested that adolescence represents an additional temporal window for adaptive developmental plasticity, though supporting evidence is scarce. Previous work has shown that male guinea pigs living in large mixed-sex colonies develop a low-aggressive phenotype as part of a queuing strategy that is adaptive for integrating into large unfamiliar colonies. By contrast, males living in pairs during adolescence become highly aggressive towards strangers. Here, we tested whether the high-aggressive phenotype is adaptive under conditions of low population density, namely when directly competing with a single opponent for access to females. For that purpose, we established groups of one pair-housed male (PM), one colony-housed male (CM) and two females. PMs directed more aggression towards the male competitor and more courtship and mating towards females than did CMs. In consequence, PMs attained the dominant position in most cases and sired significantly more offspring. Moreover, they showed distinctly higher testosterone concentrations and elevated cortisol levels, which probably promoted enhanced aggressiveness while mobilizing necessary energy. Taken together, our results provide the clearest evidence to date for adaptive shaping of the phenotype by environmental influences during adolescence.

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