Adaptive, maladaptive, neutral, or absent plasticity: Hidden caveats of reaction norms.

ABSTRACT: Adaptive phenotypic plasticity may improve the response of individuals when faced with new environmental conditions. Typically, empirical evidence for plasticity is based on phenotypic reaction norms obtained in reciprocal transplant experiments. In such experiments, individuals from their native environment are transplanted into a different environment, and a number of trait values, potentially implicated in individuals' response to the new environment, are measured. However, the interpretations of reaction norms may differ depending on the nature of the assessed traits, which may not be known beforehand. For example, for traits that contribute to local adaptation, adaptive plasticity implies nonzero slopes of reaction norms. By contrast, for traits that are correlated to fitness, high to

SUBMITTER: Eriksson M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9923493 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature