Developmental/adaptive plasticity

Question 1

Environmentally induced dispersal traits - butterflies with poor nutrition develop better dispersal phenotypes in adulthood (bodymass-torax ratio)… Evidence of PAR? No food here to sadaptive to disperse elsewhere?

Answer 1

Saastamoinen et al. 2012

Question 2

Evolution acts on phenotype, important for speciation, enviornmentally-induced mutations are important to look at

Answer 2

West-Eberhard 2005

Question 3

Epigenetic role of royalactin fed to honeybee grubs in development of queens (less methylation than workers)

Answer 3

Kamakura 2011

Question 4

Variation in phenotype is not just affected by genetic inheritance and the effects of environment, but also by the environmental experience of the mother on the offspring. She makes decisions on propagule size, number, dispersal time/location, care, protection, feeding, attributes of offspring’s father (where mate choice is in play)…

Maternal effects as transgenerational phenotypic plasticity…

Answer 4

Mousseau & Fox 1998

Question 5

Maternal effects as transgenerational phenotypic plasticity

Answer 5

Maternal effects occur when a mother’s phenotype influences her offspring’s phenotype independently of the female’s genetic contributions to her offspring.

Environmental variation (e.g. temperature, photoperiod and nutrients) experienced by mothers is translated into phenotypic variation in offspring. Similarly, maternal behavior (e.g. host choice, oviposition behavior and parental care) will often influence offspring phenotype and fitness.

Question 6

Transgenerational memory of stress in plants: Exposure to stress leads to greater recombination rates in subsequent generations (epigenetic inheritance), leading to increased genomic flexibility and potential for adaptation?

Answer 6

Molinier et al. 2006

Question 7

The order in which eggs are laid often has strong and sex-specific effects on offspring growth and survival. By adjustment of sex and growth of offspring in relation to egg-laying order, breeding females biased the morphology of offspring, raising survival by 10 to 20%… Strong parental effects may have facilitated rapid adaptive divergence, aiding spread of housefinches across north america

Answer 7

Badyaev et al. 2002