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Adaptive plasticity allows populations to cope with environmental variation but is expected to fail as conditions become unfamiliar. In novel conditions, populations may instead rely on rapid adaptation to increase fitness and avoid extinction. Adaptation should be fastest when both plasticity and selection occur in directions of the multivariate phenotype that contain abundant genetic variation. However, tests of this prediction from field experiments are rare. Here, we quantify how additive genetic variance in a multivariate phenotype changes across an elevational gradient, and test whether plasticity and selection align with genetic variation. We do so using two closely related, but ecologically distinct, sister species of Sicilian daisy (Senecio, Asteraceae) adapted to high and low elevations on Mt. Etna. Using a quantitative genetic breeding design, we generated and then reciprocally planted c. 19,000 seeds of both species, across an elevational gradient spanning each species' native elevation, and then quantified mortality and five leaf traits of emergent seedlings. We found that genetic variance in leaf traits changed more across elevations than between species. The high-elevation species at novel lower elevations showed changes in the distribution of genetic variance among the leaf traits, which reduced the amount of genetic variance in the directions of selection and the native phenotype. By contrast, the low-elevation species mainly showed changes in the amount of genetic variance at the novel high elevation, and genetic variance was concentrated in the direction of the native phenotype. For both species, leaf trait plasticity across elevations was in a direction of the multivariate phenotype that contained a moderate amount of genetic variance. Together, these data suggest that where plasticity is adaptive, selection on genetic variance for an initially plastic response could promote adaptation. However, large environmental effects on genetic variance are likely to reduce adaptive potential in novel environments.
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A suite of plant traits is thought to make weed populations highly invasive, including vigorous growth and reproduction, superior competitive ability, and high dispersal ability. Using a breeding design and a common garden experiment, we tested whether such an "invasion syndrome" has evolved in an invasive range of Solidago altissima, and whether the evolution is likely to be genetically constrained. We found an overall shift in invasive phenotypes between native North American and invasive Japanese populations. The invasive populations were taller and produced more leaves, suggesting a superior ability to exploit limited resources. The populations also produced more allelopathic compounds that can suppress competitor growth. Finally, invasive populations produced more seeds, which are smaller and are released from a greater height, indicating a potential for superior dispersal ability than the native populations. Quantitative genetics analyses found a large amount of additive genetic variation in most focal traits across native and invasive populations, with no systematic differences in its magnitude between the ranges. Genetic covariances among three traits representing invasion strategies (leaf mass, polyacetylene concentration and seed size) were small. The R metric, which measures the effect of genetic covariances on the rate of adaptation, indicated that the covariance neither constrains nor accelerates concerted evolution of these traits. The results suggest that the invasion syndrome in S. altissima has evolved in the novel range due to ample additive genetic variation, and relatively free from genetic trade-offs.
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Climate change is altering species ranges and reproductive interactions in existing ranges, offering species new scope to mate and hybridize. The outcomes will depend on how environmental factors shape reproductive barriers across life stages, yet this is rarely assessed across the environments that species encounter in nature. We assess prezygotic and postzygotic barriers, and their dependence on temperature and parental sex, in species of a reef-building tubeworm (Galeolaria) from a fast-warming biodiversity hotspot in southern Australia. By replicating pure and reciprocal hybrid crosses across 5 temperatures spanning species' thermal ranges, we estimate thermal tolerance curves (defining niches) for crosses and reproductive isolation at each temperature. By also replicating crosses at 3 life stages, we partition the contributions of prezygotic barriers at fertilization, postzygotic barriers at embryogenesis, and postzygotic barriers at larval development to reproductive isolation. We show that barriers are weaker at fertilization and embryogenesis, but stronger and more temperature sensitive at larval development, as species diverge in thermal niche. Asymmetry of barriers between parental sexes, moreover, suggests a complex interplay between niche differentiation and maternal inheritance. Our findings point to a key role for temperature in reproductive isolation, but also challenges for predicting the fate of isolation in future climates.
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Cambio Climático , Aislamiento Reproductivo , Temperatura , Animales , Masculino , Femenino , Poliquetos/genética , Poliquetos/fisiología , Australia del Sur , Hibridación GenéticaRESUMEN
Metabolic cold adaptation, or Krogh's rule, is the controversial hypothesis that predicts a monotonically negative relationship between metabolic rate and environmental temperature for ectotherms living along thermal clines measured at a common temperature. Macrophysiological patterns consistent with Krogh's rule are not always evident in nature, and experimentally evolved responses to temperature have failed to replicate such patterns. Hence, temperature may not be the sole driver of observed variation in metabolic rate. We tested the hypothesis that temperature, as a driver of energy demand, interacts with nutrition, a driver of energy supply, to shape the evolution of metabolic rate to produce a pattern resembling Krogh's rule. To do this, we evolved replicate lines of Drosophila melanogaster at 18, 25 or 28°C on control, low-calorie or low-protein diets. Contrary to our prediction, we observed no effect of nutrition, alone or interacting with temperature, on adult female and male metabolic rates. Moreover, support for Krogh's rule was only in females at lower temperatures. We, therefore, hypothesize that observed variation in metabolic rate along environmental clines arises from the metabolic consequences of environment-specific life-history optimization, rather than because of the direct effect of temperature on metabolic rate. This article is part of the theme issue 'The evolutionary significance of variation in metabolic rates'.
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Drosophila melanogaster , Estado Nutricional , Femenino , Masculino , Animales , TemperaturaRESUMEN
Meeting requirements for dietary proteins, especially of essential amino acids (EAAs), is critical for the life-long health of living organisms. However, defining EAA targets for preparing biologically-matched nutrition that satisfies metabolic requirements for protein remains challenging. Previous research has shown the advantages of 'exome matching' in representing the specific requirement of dietary AAs, where the target dietary AA profile was derived from in silico translation of the genome of an organism, specifically responsible for protein expression (the 'exome'). However, past studies have assessed these effects in only one sex, for few parameters (body mass and composition), and have used purified diets in which protein is supplied as a mixture of individual AAs. Here, for the first time, we utilise a computational method to guide the formulation of custom protein blends and test if exome matching can be achieved at the intact protein level, through blending standard protein ingredients, ultimately leading to optimal growth, longevity and reproductive function. Mice were provided ad libitum (ad lib) access to one of the four iso-energetic protein-limited diets, two matched and two mis-matched to the mouse exome target, and fed at a fixed protein energy level of 6.2%. During or following 13-weeks of feeding, the food intake, body growth, composition and reproductive functions were measured. Compared to the two mis-matched diets, male and female animals on the exome-matched diet with protein digestibility correction applied, exhibited significantly improved growth rates and final body mass. The feed conversion efficiency in the same diet was also increased by 62% and 40% over the worst diets for males and females, respectively. Male, not female, exhibited higher accretion of lean body mass with the matched, digestibility-corrected diet. All reproductive function measures in both sexes were comparable among diets, with the exception of testicular daily sperm production in males, which was higher in the two matched diets versus the mis-matched diets. The results collectively demonstrate the pronounced advantages of exome-matching in supporting body growth and improving feed conversion efficiency in both sexes. However, the potential impact of this approach in enhancing fertility needs further investigation.
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Exoma , Semen , Masculino , Ratones , Femenino , Animales , Dieta , Proteínas en la Dieta , LongevidadRESUMEN
Climate change is altering species ranges, and relative abundances within ranges, as populations become differentially adapted and vulnerable to the climates they face. Understanding present species ranges, whether species harbour and exchange adaptive variants, and how variants are distributed across landscapes undergoing rapid change, is therefore crucial to predicting responses to future climates and informing conservation strategies. Such insights are nonetheless lacking for most species of conservation concern. We assess genomic patterns of neutral variation, climate adaptation and climate vulnerability (offsets in predicted distributions of putatively adaptive variants across present and future landscapes) for sister foundation species, the marine tubeworms Galeolaria caespitosa and Galeolaria gemineoa, in a sentinel region for climate change impacts. We find that species are genetically isolated despite uncovering sympatry in their ranges, show parallel and nonparallel signals of thermal adaptation on spatial scales smaller than gene flow across their ranges, and are predicted to face different risks of maladaptation under future temperatures across their ranges. Our findings have implications for understanding local adaptation in the face of gene flow, and generate spatially explicit predictions for climatic disruption of adaptation and species distributions in coastal ecosystems that could guide experimental validation and conservation planning.
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Aclimatación , Ecosistema , Adaptación Fisiológica/genética , Cambio ClimáticoRESUMEN
Ongoing climate change has forced animals to face changing thermal and nutritional environments. Animals can adjust to such combinations of stressors via plasticity. Body size is a key trait influencing organismal fitness, and plasticity in this trait in response to nutritional and thermal conditions varies among genetically diverse, locally adapted populations. The standing genetic variation within a population can also influence the extent of body size plasticity. We generated near-isogenic lines from a newly collected population of Drosophila melanogaster at the mid-point of east coast Australia and assayed body size for all lines in combinations of thermal and nutritional stress. We found that isogenic lines showed distinct underlying patterns of body size plasticity in response to temperature and nutrition that were often different from the overall population response. We then tested whether plasticity in development time could explain, and therefore regulate, variation in body size to these combinations of environmental conditions. We selected five genotypes that showed the greatest variation in response to combined thermal and nutritional stress and assessed the correlation between response of developmental time and body size. While we found significant genetic variation in development time plasticity, it was a poor predictor of body size among genotypes. Our results therefore suggest that multiple developmental pathways could generate genetic variation in body size plasticity. Our study emphasizes the need to better understand genetic variation in plasticity within a population, which will help determine the potential for populations to adapt to ongoing environmental change.
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Drosophila melanogaster , Animales , Drosophila melanogaster/genética , Temperatura , Fenotipo , Genotipo , Tamaño Corporal/genéticaRESUMEN
Understanding links between thermal performance and environmental variation is necessary to predict organismal responses to climate change, and remains an ongoing challenge for ectotherms with complex life cycles. Distinct life stages can differ in thermal sensitivity, experience different environmental conditions as development unfolds, and, because stages are by nature interdependent, environmental effects can carry over from one stage to affect performance at others. Thermal performance may therefore respond to carryover effects of prior thermal environments, yet detailed insights into the nature, strength, and direction of those responses are still lacking. Here, in an aquatic ectotherm whose early planktonic stages (gametes, embryos, and larvae) govern adult abundances and dynamics, we explore the effects of prior thermal environments at fertilization and embryogenesis on thermal performance curves at the end of planktonic development. We factorially manipulate temperatures at fertilization and embryogenesis, then, for each combination of prior temperatures, measure thermal performance curves for survival of planktonic development (end of the larval stage) throughout the performance range. By combining generalized linear mixed modeling with parametric bootstrapping, we formally estimate and compare curve descriptors (thermal optima, limits, and breadth) among prior environments, and reveal carryover effects of temperature at embryogenesis, but not fertilization, on thermal optima at completion of development. Specifically, thermal optima shifted to track temperature during embryogenesis, while thermal limits and breadth remained unchanged. Our results argue that key aspects of thermal performance are shaped by prior thermal environment in early life, warranting further investigation of the possible mechanisms underpinning that response, and closer consideration of thermal carryover effects when predicting organismal responses to climate change.
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Additive genetic variation for fitness at vulnerable life stages governs the adaptive potential of populations facing stressful conditions under climate change, and can depend on current conditions as well as those experienced by past stages or generations. For sexual populations, fertilization is the key stage that links one generation to the next, yet the effects of fertilization environment on the adaptive potential at the vulnerable stages that then unfold during development are rarely considered, despite climatic stress posing risks for gamete function and fertility in many taxa and external fertilizers especially. Here, we develop a simple fitness landscape model exploring the effects of environmental stress at fertilization and development on the adaptive potential in early life. We then test our model with a quantitative genetic breeding design exposing family groups of a marine external fertilizer, the tubeworm Galeolaria caespitosa, to a factorial manipulation of current and projected temperatures at fertilization and development. We find that adaptive potential in early life is substantially reduced, to the point of being no longer detectable, by genotype-specific carryover effects of fertilization under projected warming. We interpret these results in light of our fitness landscape model, and argue that the thermal environment at fertilization deserves more attention than it currently receives when forecasting the adaptive potential of populations confronting climate change.
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AbstractMultilevel selection on offspring size occurs when offspring fitness depends on both absolute size (hard selection) and size relative to neighbors (soft selection). We examined multilevel selection on egg size at two biological scales-within clutches and among clutches from different females-using an external fertilizing tube worm. We exposed clutches of eggs to two sperm environments (limiting and saturating) and measured their fertilization success. We then modeled environmental (sperm-dependent) differences in hard and soft selection on individual eggs as well as selection on clutch-level traits (means and variances). Hard and soft selection differed in strength and form depending on sperm availability-hard selection was consistently stabilizing; soft selection was directional and favored eggs relatively larger (sperm limitation) or smaller (sperm saturation) than the clutch mean. At the clutch level, selection on mean egg size was largely concave, while selection on within-clutch variance was weak but generally negative-although some correlational selection occurred between these two traits. Importantly, we found that the optimal clutch mean egg size differed for mothers and offspring, suggesting some antagonism between the levels of selection. We thus identify several pathways that may maintain offspring size variation: environmentally (sperm-) dependent soft selection, antagonistic multilevel selection, and correlational selection on clutch means and variances. Multilevel approaches are powerful but seldom-used tools for studies of offspring size, and we encourage their future use.
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Fertilización , Modelos Genéticos , Óvulo , Poliquetos/genética , Selección Genética , Animales , Tamaño de la Nidada , Femenino , MasculinoRESUMEN
Dominant de novo mutations in the co-chaperone BAG3 cause a severe form of myofibrillar myopathy, exhibiting progressive muscle weakness, muscle structural failure, and protein aggregation. To elucidate the mechanism of disease in, and identify therapies for, BAG3 myofibrillar myopathy, we generated two zebrafish models, one conditionally expressing BAG3P209L and one with a nonsense mutation in bag3. While transgenic BAG3P209L-expressing fish display protein aggregation, modeling the early phase of the disease, bag3-/- fish exhibit exercise dependent fiber disintegration, and reduced swimming activity, consistent with later stages of the disease. Detailed characterization of the bag3-/- fish, revealed an impairment in macroautophagic/autophagic activity, a defect we confirmed in BAG3 patient samples. Taken together, our data highlights that while BAG3P209L expression is sufficient to promote protein aggregation, it is the loss of BAG3 due to its sequestration within aggregates, which results in impaired autophagic activity, and subsequent muscle weakness. We therefore screened autophagy-promoting compounds for their effectiveness at removing protein aggregates, identifying nine including metformin. Further evaluation demonstrated metformin is not only able to bring about the removal of protein aggregates in zebrafish and human myoblasts but is also able to rescue the fiber disintegration and swimming deficit observed in the bag3-/- fish. Therefore, repurposing metformin provides a promising therapy for BAG3 myopathy.Abbreviations:ACTN: actinin, alpha; BAG3: BAG cochaperone 3; CRYAB: crystallin alpha B; DES: desmin; DMSO: dimethyl sulfoxide; DNAJB6: DnaJ heat shock protein family (Hsp40) member B6; dpf: days post fertilization; eGFP: enhanced green fluorescent protein; FDA: Food and Drug Administration; FHL1: four and a half LIM domains 1; FLNC: filamin C; hpf: hours post-fertilization; HSPB8: heat shock protein family B [small] member 8; LDB3/ZASP: LIM domain binding 3; MYOT: myotilin; TTN: titin; WT: wild-type.
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Proteínas Adaptadoras Transductoras de Señales , Proteínas Reguladoras de la Apoptosis , Metformina , Miopatías Estructurales Congénitas , Proteínas Adaptadoras Transductoras de Señales/metabolismo , Animales , Proteínas Reguladoras de la Apoptosis/metabolismo , Autofagia , Proteínas del Choque Térmico HSP40/genética , Proteínas del Choque Térmico HSP40/metabolismo , Humanos , Péptidos y Proteínas de Señalización Intracelular , Proteínas con Dominio LIM , Metformina/farmacología , Chaperonas Moleculares/metabolismo , Proteínas Musculares , Músculos/metabolismo , Mutación , Miopatías Estructurales Congénitas/genética , Proteínas del Tejido Nervioso/metabolismo , Pez Cebra/metabolismo , Proteínas de Pez CebraRESUMEN
Understanding thermal performance at life stages that limit persistence is necessary to predict responses to climate change, especially for ectotherms whose fitness (survival and reproduction) depends on environmental temperature. Ectotherms often undergo stage-specific changes in size, complexity and duration that are predicted to modify thermal performance. Yet performance is mostly explored for adults, while performance at earlier stages that typically limit persistence remains poorly understood. Here, we experimentally isolate thermal performance curves at fertilization, embryo development and larval development stages in an aquatic ectotherm whose early planktonic stages (gametes, embryos and larvae) govern adult abundances and dynamics. Unlike previous studies based on short-term exposures, responses with unclear links to fitness or proxies in lieu of explicit curve descriptors (thermal optima, limits and breadth), we measured performance as successful completion of each stage after exposure throughout, and at temperatures that explicitly capture curve descriptors at all stages. Formal comparisons of descriptors using a combination of generalized linear mixed modelling and parametric bootstrapping reveal important differences among life stages. Thermal performance differs significantly from fertilization to embryo development (with thermal optimum declining by â¼2°C, thermal limits shifting inwards by â¼8-10°C and thermal breadth narrowing by â¼10°C), while performance declines independently of temperature thereafter. Our comparisons show that thermal performance at one life stage can misrepresent performance at others, and point to gains in complexity during embryogenesis, rather than subsequent gains in size or duration of exposure, as a key driver of thermal sensitivity in early life.
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Cambio Climático , Animales , Larva , TemperaturaRESUMEN
Much interest exists in the extent to which constant versus fluctuating temperatures affect thermal performance traits and their phenotypic plasticity. Theory suggests that effects should vary with temperature, being especially pronounced at more extreme low (because of thermal respite) and high (because of Jensen's inequality) temperatures. Here we tested this idea by examining the effects of constant temperatures (10 to 30 °C in 5 °C increments) and fluctuating temperatures (means equal to the constant temperatures, but with fluctuations of ±5 °C) temperatures on the adult (F2) phenotypic plasticity of three thermal performance traits - critical thermal minimum (CTmin), critical thermal maximum (CTmax), and upper lethal temperature (ULT50) in ten species of springtails (Collembola) from three families (Isotomidae 7 spp.; Entomobryidae 2 spp.; Onychiuridae 1 sp.). The lowest mean CTmin value recorded here was -3.56 ± 1.0 °C for Paristoma notabilis and the highest mean CTmax was 43.1 ± 0.8 °C for Hemisotoma thermophila. The Acclimation Response Ratio for CTmin was on average 0.12 °C/°C (range: 0.04 to 0.21 °C/°C), but was much lower for CTmax (mean: 0.017 °C/°C, range: -0.015 to 0.047 °C/°C) and lower also for ULT50 (mean: 0.05 °C/°C, range: -0.007 to 0.14 °C/°C). Fluctuating versus constant temperatures typically had little effect on adult phenotypic plasticity, with effect sizes either no different from zero, or inconsistent in the direction of difference. Previous work assessing adult phenotypic plasticity of these thermal performance traits across a range of constant temperatures can thus be applied to a broader range of circumstances in springtails.
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Artrópodos/fisiología , Termotolerancia , Animales , Artrópodos/clasificación , SueloRESUMEN
Evolutionary potential for adaptation hinges upon the orientation of genetic variation for traits under selection, captured by the additive genetic variance-covariance matrix (G), as well as the evolutionary stability of G. Yet studies that assess both the stability of G and its alignment with selection are extraordinarily rare. We evaluated the stability of G in three Drosophila melanogaster populations that have adapted to local climatic conditions along a latitudinal cline. We estimated population- and sex-specific G matrices for wing size and three climatic stress-resistance traits that diverge adaptively along the cline. To determine how G affects evolutionary potential within these populations, we used simulations to quantify how well G aligns with the direction of trait divergence along the cline (as a proxy for the direction of local selection) and how genetic covariances between traits and sexes influence this alignment. We found that G was stable across the cline, showing no significant divergence overall, or in sex-specific subcomponents, among populations. G also aligned well with the direction of clinal divergence, with genetic covariances strongly elevating evolutionary potential for adaptation to climatic extremes. These results suggest that genetic covariances between both traits and sexes should significantly boost evolutionary responses to environmental change.
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Adaptación Biológica , Clima , Drosophila/genética , Variación Genética , Rasgos de la Historia de Vida , Animales , Australia , Drosophila/anatomía & histología , Drosophila/fisiología , Estrés Fisiológico , Alas de Animales/anatomía & histología , Alas de Animales/fisiologíaRESUMEN
Genetic variances and covariances, summarized in G matrices, are key determinants of the course of adaptive evolution. Consequently, understanding how G matrices vary among populations is critical to answering a variety of questions in evolutionary biology. A method has recently been proposed for generating null distributions of statistics pertaining to differences in G matrices among populations. The general approach facilitated by this method is likely to prove to be very important in studies of the evolution of G. We have identified an issue in the method that will cause it to create null distributions of differences in G matrices that are likely to be far too narrow. The issue arises from the fact that the method as currently used generates null distributions of statistics pertaining to differences in G matrices across populations by simulating breeding value vectors based on G matrices estimated from data, randomizing these vectors across populations, and then calculating null values of statistics from G matrices that are calculated directly from the variances and covariances among randomized vectors. This calculation treats breeding values as quantities that are directly measurable, instead of predicted from G matrices that are themselves estimated from patterns of covariance among kin. The existing method thus neglects a major source of uncertainty in G matrices, which renders it anti-conservative. We first suggest a correction to the method. We then apply the original and modified methods to a very simple instructive scenario. Finally, we demonstrate the use of both methods in the analysis of a real data set.
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Evolución Biológica , Variación Genética , Modelos Genéticos , Simulación por Computador , HumanosRESUMEN
Many exaggerated morphological traits evolve under sexual selection. However, the optimal level of exaggeration is dictated by a trade-off between natural and sexual selection, representing a balance between its benefits and associated costs. Male fiddler crabs wave an enlarged major claw during behavioural displays that eliminates the need for direct combat, and determines courtship outcomes. The outcomes of these displays often depend on claw size, exposing males to selection for larger claws to improve mating and combat success. Applying phylogenetic comparative methods to 27 fiddler crab species, we examined the evolution of major claw morphologies, leg morphologies, and waving displays to determine whether these traits coevolved to optimise functioning of the exaggerated claw, or to mitigate potential metabolic or locomotor costs. We found legs to be sexually dimorphic, with males having longer legs than females. Legs were also longer in species that waved laterally rather than vertically, in species with larger major claws, and in species whose major claws were relatively elongate. These results suggest that leg morphology has coevolved with claw enlargement to enhance functionality of the major claw during waving displays, in addition to compensating for any negative effects of claw size.
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Evolución Biológica , Braquiuros/anatomía & histología , Extremidades/anatomía & histología , Animales , Braquiuros/clasificación , Braquiuros/fisiología , Cortejo , Masculino , Preferencia en el Apareamiento Animal , Tamaño de los Órganos , Filogenia , Caracteres SexualesRESUMEN
Parental environments are regularly shown to alter the mean fitness of offspring, but their impacts on the genetic variation for fitness, which predicts adaptive capacity and is also measured on offspring, are unclear. Consequently, how parental environments mediate adaptation to environmental stressors, like those accompanying global change, is largely unknown. Here, using an ecologically important marine tubeworm in a quantitative-genetic breeding design, we tested how parental exposure to projected ocean warming alters the mean survival, and genetic variation for survival, of offspring during their most vulnerable life stage under current and projected temperatures. Offspring survival was higher when parent and offspring temperatures matched. Across offspring temperatures, parental exposure to warming altered the distribution of additive genetic variance for survival, making it covary across current and projected temperatures in a way that may aid adaptation to future warming. Parental exposure to warming also amplified nonadditive genetic variance for survival, suggesting that compatibilities between parental genomes may grow increasingly important under future warming. Our study shows that parental environments potentially have broader-ranging effects on adaptive capacity than currently appreciated, not only mitigating the negative impacts of global change but also reshaping the raw fuel for evolutionary responses to it.
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Adaptación Biológica , Cambio Climático , Ambiente , Poliquetos/fisiología , Animales , VictoriaRESUMEN
The life histories of modular organisms are complicated, where selection and optimization can occur at both organismal and modular levels. At a modular level, growth, reproduction and death can occur in one module, independently of others. Across modular groups, there are no formal investigations of selection on module longevity. We used two field experiments to test whether selection acts on module longevity in a sessile marine invertebrate and whether selection varies across successional gradients and resource regimes. We found that selection does act on module longevity and that the strength of selection varies with environmental conditions. In environments where interspecific competition is high, selection favours colonies with longer zooid (module) longevity for colonies that initially received high levels of maternal investment. In environments where food availability is high and flow rate is low, selection also favours colonies with longer zooid longevity. These patterns of selection provide partial support for module longevity theory developed for plants. Nevertheless, that selection on module longevity is so context-dependent suggests that variation in module longevity is likely to be maintained in this system.
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Briozoos/fisiología , Longevidad , Animales , Ecosistema , Larva , Densidad de Población , Reproducción , Especificidad de la EspecieRESUMEN
Evolutionary responses to indirect selection pressures imposed by intensive harvesting are increasingly common. While artificial selection has shown that biochemical components can show rapid and dramatic evolution, it remains unclear as to whether intensive harvesting can inadvertently induce changes in the biochemistry of harvested populations. For applications such as algal culture, many of the desirable bioproducts could evolve in response to harvesting, reducing cost-effectiveness, but experimental tests are lacking. We used an experimental evolution approach where we imposed heavy and light harvesting regimes on multiple lines of an alga of commercial interest for twelve cycles of harvesting and then placed all lines in a common garden regime for four cycles. We have previously shown that lines in a heavy harvesting regime evolve a "live fast" phenotype with higher growth rates relative to light harvesting regimes. Here, we show that algal biochemistry also shows evolutionary responses, although they were temporarily masked by differences in density under the different harvesting regimes. Heavy harvesting regimes, relative to light harvesting regimes, had reduced productivity of desirable bioproducts, particularly fatty acids. We suggest that commercial operators wishing to maximize productivity of desirable bioproducts should maintain mother cultures, kept at higher densities (which tend to select for desirable phenotypes), and periodically restart their intensively harvested cultures to minimize the negative consequences of biochemical evolution. Our study shows that the burgeoning algal culture industry should pay careful attention to the role of evolution in intensively harvested crops as these effects are nontrivial if subtle.
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Within-brood variation in offspring size is universal, but its causes are unclear. Theoretical explanations for within-brood variation commonly invoke bet-hedging, although alternatives consider the role of sibling competition. Despite abundant theory, empirical manipulations of within-brood variation in offspring size are rare. Using a field experiment, we investigate the consequences of unequal maternal provisioning for both maternal and offspring fitness in a marine invertebrate. We create experimental broods of siblings with identical mean, but different variance, in offspring size, and different sibling densities. Overall, more-variable broods had higher mean performance than less-variable broods, suggesting benefits of unequal provisioning that arise independently of bet-hedging. Complementarity effects drove these benefits, apparently because offspring-size variation promotes resource partitioning. We suggest that when siblings compete for the same resources, and offspring size affects niche usage, the production of more-variable broods can provide greater fitness returns given the same maternal investment; a process unanticipated by the current theory.