Phenotypic plasticity and population viability: the importance of environmental predictability
Authored by Daniel E Schindler, Thomas E Reed, Robin S Waples, Jeffrey J Hard, Michael T Kinnison
Date Published: 2010
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0771
Sponsors:
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Platforms:
C++
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Phenotypic plasticity plays a key role in modulating how environmental
variation influences population dynamics, but we have only rudimentary
understanding of how plasticity interacts with the magnitude and
predictability of environmental variation to affect population dynamics
and persistence. We developed a stochastic individual-based model, in
which phenotypes could respond to a temporally fluctuating environmental
cue and fitness depended on the match between the phenotype and a
randomly fluctuating trait optimum, to assess the absolute fitness and
population dynamic consequences of plasticity under different levels of
environmental stochasticity and cue reliability. When cue and optimum
were tightly correlated, plasticity buffered absolute fitness from
environmental variability, and population size remained high and
relatively invariant. In contrast, when this correlation weakened and
environmental variability was high, strong plasticity reduced population
size, and populations with excessively strong plasticity had
substantially greater extinction probability. Given that environments
might become more variable and unpredictable in the future owing to
anthropogenic influences, reaction norms that evolved under historic
selective regimes could imperil populations in novel or changing
environmental contexts. We suggest that demographic models (e.g.
population viability analyses) would benefit from a more explicit
consideration of how phenotypic plasticity influences population
responses to environmental change.
Tags
Adaptation
Evolution
selection
Climate-change
Temperature
Life-history
Reproduction
Reaction norms
Adaptive plasticity
Canalization