Blog post : Module 9 reflection

 Phenotypic Plasticity

Option 2 

Phenotypic plasticity is the responses by individuals to shifting conditions, such as changes in environmental change. Phenotypic plasticity, the environment-dependent expression of phenotypes by genotypes, can substantially alter the phenotypic distribution of populations over time without a genetic change. Plasticity is evolutionarily favored when the environment is heterogeneous in time or space, selection favors different phenotypes in different environments, no one phenotype has the greatest fitness across all environments, and reliable cues allow organisms to respond effectively There are costs associated with acquiring environmental information, producing different phenotypes, and maintaining the physiological and developmental capacity for facultative responses. however, can substantially constraint the evolution of phenotypic plasticity.

    Phenotypic plasticity, the expression of different phenotypes from the same genome in response to environmental variation, is a widespread adaptation in seasonal habitats that allows organisms to maximize fitness as they track the predictable cycles of contrasting ecological conditions. These cycles place divergent selective pressures on an organism’s life history, rewarding phenotype-environment matching via seasonally plastic strategies, such as the timing of breeding in birds, the diapause decision in multivoltine insects, and seasonal wing patterns in butterflies.

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2005.01322.x

Piersma, T. & Van Gils, J. A. The Flexible Phenotype: a Body-centred Integration Of Ecology, Physiology, and Behaviour (Oxford University Press, New York, 2011).

Moran, N. A. The evolutionary maintenance of alternative phenotypes. Am. Nat. 139, 971–989 (1992).

Oostra, V., Saastamoinen, M., Zwaan, B.J. et al. Strong phenotypic plasticity limits potential for evolutionary responses to climate change. Nat Commun 9, 1005 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03384-9

semanticscholar.org/paper/Temperature-dependent-phenotypic-plasticity-in-wing-Sourakov/7763b26212a1fec4465fc742b775be3b1d238f7a