Kraft P G, Wilson R S, Franklin C E, Blows M W
School of Integrative Biology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
J Evol Biol. 2006 Nov;19(6):1813-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01185.x.
Predator-induced morphological plasticity is a model system for investigating phenotypic plasticity in an ecological context. We investigated the genetic basis of the predator-induced plasticity in Rana lessonae by determining the pattern of genetic covariation of three morphological traits that were found to be induced in a predatory environment. Body size decreased and tail dimensions increased when reared in the presence of preying dragonfly larvae. Genetic variance in body size increased by almost an order of magnitude in the predator environment, and the first genetic principal component was found to be highly significantly different between the two environments. The across environment genetic correlation for body size was significantly below 1 indicating that different genes contributed to this trait in the two environments. Body size may therefore be able to respond to selection independently in the two environments to some extent.
捕食者诱导的形态可塑性是一个用于在生态背景下研究表型可塑性的模型系统。我们通过确定在捕食环境中被诱导的三个形态性状的遗传协变模式，研究了莱氏蛙（Rana lessonae）中捕食者诱导可塑性的遗传基础。当在有捕食性蜻蜓幼虫存在的环境中饲养时，身体大小减小而尾巴尺寸增加。在捕食者环境中，身体大小的遗传方差增加了近一个数量级，并且发现两个环境之间的第一个遗传主成分存在高度显著差异。身体大小的跨环境遗传相关性显著低于1，表明在两个环境中该性状由不同的基因控制。因此，身体大小在一定程度上可能能够在两个环境中独立地对选择作出反应。
