Environmental change and the rate of phenotypic plasticity.

ABSTRACT: With rapid and less predictable environmental change emerging as the 'new norm', understanding how individuals tolerate environmental stress via plastic, often reversible changes to the phenotype (i.e., reversible phenotypic plasticity, RPP), remains a key issue in ecology. Here, we examine the potential for better understanding how organisms overcome environmental challenges within their own lifetimes by scrutinizing a somewhat overlooked aspect of RPP, namely the rate at which it can occur. Although recent advances in the field provide indication of the aspects of environmental change where RPP rates may be of particular ecological relevance, we observe that current theoretical models do not consider the evolutionary potential of the rate of RPP. Whilst recent theory underscores the impo

SUBMITTER: Burton T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9541213 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature