Speeding up microevolution: the effects of increasing temperature on selection and genetic variance in a wild bird population.

ABSTRACT: The amount of genetic variance underlying a phenotypic trait and the strength of selection acting on that trait are two key parameters that determine any evolutionary response to selection. Despite substantial evidence that, in natural populations, both parameters may vary across environmental conditions, very little is known about the extent to which they may covary in response to environmental heterogeneity. Here we show that, in a wild population of great tits (Parus major), the strength of the directional selection gradients on timing of breeding increased with increasing spring temperatures, and that genotype-by-environment interactions also predicted an increase in additive genetic variance, and heritability, of timing of breeding with increasing spring temperature. Consequently, we

SUBMITTER: Husby A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3051266 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature