Is there plasticity in developmental instability? The effect of daily thermal fluctuations in an ectotherm.

ABSTRACT: Diversified bet-hedging (DBH) by production of within-genotype phenotypic variance may evolve to maximize fitness in stochastic environments. Bet-hedging is generally associated with parental effects, but phenotypic variation may also develop throughout life via developmental instability (DI). This opens for the possibility of a within-generation mechanism creating DBH during the lifetime of individuals. If so, DI could in fact be a plastic trait itself; if a fluctuating environment indicates uncertainty about future conditions, sensing such fluctuations could trigger DI as a DBH response. However, this possibility has received little empirical attention. Here, we test whether fluctuating environments may elicit such a response in the clonally reproducing crustacean Daphnia magna. S

SUBMITTER: Kielland ON 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5743494 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature