Phylogenetic patterns of trait and trait plasticity evolution: Insights from amphibian embryos

Environmental variation favors the evolution of phenotypic plasticity. For many species, we understand the costs and benefits of different phenotypes, but we lack a broad understanding of how plastic traits evolve across large clades. Using identical experiments conducted across North America, we ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolution 2018-03, Vol.72 (3), p.663-678
Main Authors: Relyea, Rick A., Stephens, Patrick R., Barrow, Lisa N., Blaustein, Andrew R., Bradley, Paul W., Buck, Julia C., Chang, Ann, Collins, James P., Crother, Brian, Earl, Julia, Gervasi, Stephanie S., Hoverman, Jason T., Hyman, Oliver, Lemmon, Emily Moriarty, Luhring, Thomas M., Michelson, Moses, Murray, Chris, Price, Steven, Semlitsch, Raymond D., Sih, Andrew, Stoler, Aaron B., VandenBroek, Nick, Warwick, Alexa, Wengert, Greta, Hammond, John I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Physiological
Anaxyrus
Animals
Anura - growth & development
Anura - physiology
Astacoidea - chemistry
Biological Evolution
Brownian motion
Cost benefit analysis
Crayfish
Cues
Embryo, Nonmammalian - physiology
Embryos
Evolution
Food Chain
Hyla
Life history
Life History Traits
Lithobates
Olfactory Perception
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Phenotypic plasticity
phylogenetic inertia
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Plastic properties
Plasticity
Predators
Prey
Pseudacris
Rana
Reptiles & amphibians
Species
United States
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Summary:Environmental variation favors the evolution of phenotypic plasticity. For many species, we understand the costs and benefits of different phenotypes, but we lack a broad understanding of how plastic traits evolve across large clades. Using identical experiments conducted across North America, we examined prey responses to predator cues. We quantified five life-history traits and the magnitude of their plasticity for 23 amphibian species/populations (spanning three families and five genera) when exposed to no cues, crushed-egg cues, and predatory crayfish cues. Embryonic responses varied considerably among species and phylogenetic signal was common among the traits, whereas phylogenetic signal was rare for trait plasticities. Among traitevolution models, the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) model provided the best fit or was essentially tied with Brownian motion. Using the best fitting model, evolutionary rates for plasticities were higher than traits for three life-history traits and lower for two. These data suggest that the evolution of life-history traits in amphibian embryos is more constrained by a species’position in the phylogeny than is the evolution of life history plasticities. The fact that an OU model of trait evolution was often a good fit to patterns of trait variation may indicate adaptive optima for traits and their plasticities.
ISSN:0014-3820
1558-5646
DOI:10.1111/evo.13428