Relaxed genetic constraint is ancestral to the evolution of phenotypic plasticity.

ABSTRACT: Phenotypic plasticity--the capacity of a single genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to varying environmental conditions--is widespread. Yet, whether, and how, plasticity impacts evolutionary diversification is unclear. According to a widely discussed hypothesis, plasticity promotes rapid evolution because genes expressed differentially across different environments (i.e., genes with "biased" expression) experience relaxed genetic constraint and thereby accumulate variation faster than do genes with unbiased expression. Indeed, empirical studies confirm that biased genes evolve faster than unbiased genes in the same genome. An alternative hypothesis holds, however, that the relaxed constraint and faster evolutionary rates of biased genes may be a precondition for, rather th

SUBMITTER: Leichty AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3381942 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature