Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 369, Issue 1649, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2013.0255
Keywords
evolutionary rate; G-matrix; integration; macroevolution; microevolution; power relationship
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Funding
- Norwegian Research Council [196494/V40]
- US National Science Foundation [DEB-0444157, DEB-0444745]
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If genetic constraints are important, then rates and direction of evolution should be related to trait evolvability. Here we use recently developed measures of evolvability to test the genetic constraint hypothesis with quantitative genetic data on floral morphology from the Neotropical vine Dalechampia scandens (Euphorbiaceae). These measures were compared against rates of evolution and patterns of divergence among 24 populations in two species in the D. scandens species complex. We found clear evidence for genetic constraints, particularly among traits that were tightly phenotypically integrated. This relationship between evolvability and evolutionary divergence is puzzling, because the estimated evolvabilities seem too large to constitute real constraints. We suggest that this paradox can be explained by a combination of weak stabilizing selection around moving adaptive optima and small realized evolvabilities relative to the observed additive genetic variance.
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