Journal
EVOLUTION
Volume 76, Issue 2, Pages 190-206Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/evo.14408
Keywords
Cryptic genetic variation; gene by environment interaction; phenotypic plasticity; quantitative genetics; reaction norm; threshold trait
Categories
Funding
- Norwegian Research Council through the Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics [223257]
- NTNU
- University of Aberdeen
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This article summarizes the differences in forms of phenotypic plasticity, genetic variation, and heritability between threshold traits and continuously distributed traits. It highlights the need for theoretical developments to rationalize and predict the dynamics involving plastic threshold traits in phenotypic and microevolutionary responses.
Forms of phenotypic plasticity in key traits, and forms of selection on and genetic variation in such plasticity, fundamentally underpin phenotypic, population dynamic, and evolutionary responses to environmental variation and directional change. Accordingly, numerous theoretical and empirical studies have examined properties and consequences of plasticity, primarily considering traits that are continuously distributed on observed phenotypic scales with linear reaction norms. However, many environmentally sensitive traits are expressed as discrete alternative phenotypes and are appropriately characterized as quantitative genetic threshold traits. Here, we highlight that forms of phenotypic plasticity, genetic variation, and inheritance in plasticity, and outcomes of selection on plasticity, could differ substantially between threshold traits and continuously distributed traits (as are typically considered). We thereby highlight theoretical developments that are required to rationalize and predict phenotypic and microevolutionary dynamics involving plastic threshold traits, and outline how intrinsic properties of such traits could provide relatively straightforward explanations for apparently idiosyncratic observed patterns of phenotypic variation. We summarize how key quantitative genetic parameters underlying threshold traits can be estimated, and thereby set the scene for embedding dynamic discrete traits into theoretical and empirical understanding of the role of plasticity in driving phenotypic, population, and evolutionary responses to environmental variation and change.
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