Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Walsh, Matthew R.
• Castoe, Todd
• Holmes, Julian
• Packer, Michelle
• Biles, Kelsey
• Walsh, Melissa
• Munch, Stephan B.
• Post, David M.

Titel

Local adaptation in transgenerational responses to predators

Ist Teil von

• Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences, 2016-01, Vol.283 (1823), p.20152271

Ort / Verlag

England: The Royal Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Environmental signals can induce phenotypic changes that span multiple generations. Along with phenotypic responses that occur during development (i.e. ‘within-generation’ plasticity), such ‘transgenerational plasticity’ (TGP) has been documented in a diverse array of taxa spanning many environmental perturbations. New theory predicts that temporal stability is a key driver of the evolution of TGP. We tested this prediction using natural populations of zooplankton from lakes in Connecticut that span a large gradient in the temporal dynamics of predator-induced mortality. We reared more than 120 clones of Daphnia ambigua from nine lakes for multiple generations in the presence/absence of predator cues. We found that temporal variation in mortality selects for within-generation plasticity while consistently strong (or weak) mortality selects for increased TGP. Such results provide us the first evidence for local adaptation in TGP and argue that divergent ecological conditions select for phenotypic responses within and across generations.