Search results for " Plasticity"

Intraspecific variability in host manipulation by parasites

2011

8 pages; International audience; Manipulative parasites have the capacity to alter a broad range of phenotypic traits in their hosts, extending from colour, morphology and behaviour. While significant attention has been devoted to describing the diversity of host manipulation among parasite clades, and testing the adaptive value of phenotypic traits that can be manipulated, there is increasing evidence that variation exists in the frequency and intensity of the changes displayed by parasitized individuals within single host-manipulative parasite systems. Such variability occurs within individuals, between individuals of a same population, and across populations. Here we review the non-genet…

Northward invasion of the parasitic deer ked ( Lipoptena cervi), is there geographical variation in pupal size and development duration?

2010

SUMMARYThe deer ked (Lipoptena cervi) is a common ectoparasite of cervids. During the last decades the species has rapidly invaded in northern Europe, especially in Finland, towards the north and increased its prevalence on the moose population. Consequently, during this rapid invasion the deer ked has faced more severe climatic conditions. We studied whether pupal size (measured as pupal weight) and pupal development duration of the deer ked varies along historical invasion zones and temperature zones towards north in Finland. Moreover, we explored possible size- and gender-dependent variation in pupal development duration. We divided wild-collected pupae in respect to their origin in two …

From glacial refugia to hydrological microrefugia: Factors and processes driving the persistence of the climate relict tree Zelkova sicula

2021

Abstract With only two tiny populations, the climate relict Zelkova sicula (Sicily, Italy) is one of the rarest trees in the world. It also represents the most marginal member of genus Zelkova that was widespread in the broadleaved forests thriving in warm–temperate climates throughout Eurasia until the Last Glacial Age. Occurring at the westernmost range of the genus under typical Mediterranean climate, the micro‐topographic settings have always appeared crucial for the survival of this relict. However, the factors and processes actually involved in its persistence in the current refugia, as well as the response of similar relict trees in arid environments, are poorly understood worldwide.…

A review of transgenerational effects of ocean acidification on marine bivalves and their implications for sclerochronology

2020

Abstract Ocean acidification can negatively impact marine bivalves, especially their shell mineralization processes. Consequently, whether marine bivalves can rapidly acclimate and eventually adapt in an acidifying ocean is now increasingly receiving considerable attention. Projecting the fate of this vulnerable taxonomic group is also pivotal for the science of sclerochronology – the study which seeks to deduce records of past environmental changes and organismal life-history traits from various geochemical properties of periodically layered hard tissues (bivalve shells, corals, fish otoliths, etc.). In this review, we provide a concise overview of the long-term and transgenerational respo…

Estimation of fitness from energetics and life-history data: An example using mussels.

2017

Changing environments have the potential to alter the fitness of organisms through effects on components of fitness such as energy acquisition, metabolic cost, growth rate, survivorship, and reproductive output. Organisms, on the other hand, can alter aspects of their physiology and life histories through phenotypic plasticity as well as through genetic change in populations (selection). Researchers examining the effects of environmental variables frequently concentrate on individual components of fitness, although methods exist to combine these into a population level estimate of average fitness, as the per capita rate of population growth for a set of identical individuals with a particul…

Empirical evidence for fast temperature-dependent body size evolution in rotifers

2017

Organisms tend to decrease in size with increasing temperature by phenotypic plasticity (the temperature-size rule; ectotherms) and/or genetically (Bergmann’s rule; all organisms). In this study, the evolutionary response of body size to temperature was examined in the cyclically parthenogenetic rotifer Brachionus plicatilis. Our aim was to investigate whether this species, already known to decrease in size with increasing temperature by phenotypic plasticity, presents a similar pattern at the genetic level. We exposed a multiclonal mixture of B. plicatilis to experimental evolution at low and high temperature and monitored body size weekly. Within a month, we observed a smaller size at hig…

2019

Trade-offs have been shown to play an important role in the divergence of mating strategies and sexual ornamentation, but their importance in explaining warning signal diversity has received less attention. In aposematic organisms, allocation costs of producing the conspicuous warning signal pigmentation under nutritional stress could potentially trade-off with life-history traits and maintain variation in warning coloration. We studied this with an aposematic herbivore Arctia plantaginis (Arctiidae), whose larvae and adults show extensive variation in aposematic coloration. In larvae, less melanic coloration (i.e. larger orange patterns) produces a more efficient warning signal against pre…

Measuring phenotypes in fluctuating environments

2020

Despite considerable theoretical interest in how the evolution of phenotypic plasticity should be shaped by environmental variability and stochasticity, how individuals actually respond to these aspects of the environment within their own lifetimes remains unclear. We propose that this understanding has been hampered by experimental approaches that expose organisms to fluctuating environments (typically treatments where fluctuations in the environment are cyclical vs. erratic) for a pre‐determined duration while ensuring that the mean environment over that the entire exposure period is invariable. This approach implicitly assumes that responses to the mean and variance/predictability in the…

Immense plasticity of timing of breeding in a sedentary forest passerine, Poecile palustris

2015

Numerous bird species have advanced their breeding seasons in response to climate warming. These changes were mostly brought about by phenotypic plasticity, i.e. flexible reactions of individual birds, rather than by microevolutionary change. Knowing the limits of plasticity is thus of paramount importance in any attempt to predict possible reactions of birds to climate warming. However, the breeding performance of the same individuals in contrasting environmental conditions, necessary to answer this question, is rarely observed. Here, we provide data on the flexibility in timing of egg-laying of individual marsh tit Poecile palustris females breeding in an extremely late (2013) and early (…

Effects of ocean acidification on embryonic respiration and development of a temperate wrasse living along a natural CO2gradient

2016

We assessed rising CO2 effects on metabolism and development of a nesting wrasse by reciprocal transplant experiments in the field. Offspring brooded under different CO2 conditions exhibited similar responses. However, embryos from High-CO2 site were resilient to a wider range of pCO2 levels than those belonging to current-day conditions.