Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 367, Issue 1596, Pages 1647-1664Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0020
Keywords
climate change; dispersal; glucocorticoids; maternal effects; phenotypic plasticity; stress axis
Categories
Funding
- NSF [IOS 1022031]
- CNRS
- Universite Paul Sabatier Toulouse III
- Biodiversity grant (TenLamas)
- FP7 grant (SCALES)
- French ANR
Ask authors/readers for more resources
A challenge to ecologists and evolutionary biologists is predicting organismal responses to the anticipated changes to global ecosystems through climate change. Most evidence suggests that short-term global change may involve increasing occurrences of extreme events, therefore the immediate response of individuals will be determined by physiological capacities and life-history adaptations to cope with extreme environmental conditions. Here, we consider the role of hormones and maternal effects in determining the persistence of species in altered environments. Hormones, specifically steroids, are critical for patterning the behaviour and morphology of parents and their offspring. Hence, steroids have a pervasive influence on multiple aspects of the offspring phenotype over its lifespan. Stress hormones, e. g. glucocorticoids, modulate and perturb phenotypes both early in development and later into adulthood. Females exposed to abiotic stressors during reproduction may alter the phenotypes by manipulation of hormones to the embryos. Thus, hormone-mediated maternal effects, which generate phenotypic plasticity, may be one avenue for coping with global change. Variation in exposure to hormones during development influences both the propensity to disperse, which alters meta-population dynamics, and population dynamics, by affecting either recruitment to the population or subsequent life-history characteristics of the offspring. We suggest that hormones may be an informative index to the potential for populations to adapt to changing environments.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available