Dispersal plasticity driven by variation in fitness across species and environmental gradients.

ABSTRACT: Dispersal plasticity, when organisms adjust their dispersal decisions depending on their environment, can play a major role in ecological and evolutionary dynamics, but how it relates to fitness remains scarcely explored. Theory predicts that high dispersal plasticity should evolve when environmental gradients have a strong impact on fitness. Using microcosms, we tested in five species of the genus Tetrahymena whether dispersal plasticity relates to differences in fitness sensitivity along three environmental gradients. Dispersal plasticity was species- and environment-dependent. As expected, dispersal plasticity was generally related to fitness sensitivity, with higher dispersal plasticity when fitness is more affected by environmental gradients. Individuals often preferentially disperse

SUBMITTER: Campana JLM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9827879 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature