Can recent evolutionary history promote resilience to environmental change?

ABSTRACT: Principles of social evolution have long been used retrospectively to interpret social interactions, but have less commonly been applied predictively to inform conservation and animal husbandry strategies. We investigate whether differences in developmental environment, facilitated by divergent social conditions, can predict resilience to environmental change. Upon exposure to harsh novel environments, populations that previously experienced more benign social environments are predicted either to suffer fitness losses (the "mutation load hypothesis" and "selection filter hypothesis") or maintain fitness (the "beneficial mutation hypothesis"). We tested these contrasting predictions using populations of burying beetles Nicrophorus vespilloides we had evolved experimentally for 45 gen

SUBMITTER: Bladon EK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11486917 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature