School of Natural Sciences, Linnaeus University, SE-391 82 Kalmar, Sweden.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2012 Aug;87(3):756-67. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-185X.2012.00231.x. Epub 2012 Apr 27.
The consequences of among-individual phenotypic variation for the performance and ecological success of populations and species has attracted growing interest in recent years. Earlier reviews of this field typically address the consequences for population processes of one specific source of variation (plasticity or polymorphism), or consider one specific aspect of population performance, such as rate of speciation. Here we take a broader approach and study earlier reviews in order to summarize and compare predictions regarding several population-level consequences of phenotypic variation stemming from genetic polymorphism, developmental plasticity or randomized phenotype switching. Unravelling cause-dependent consequences of variation may increase our ability to understand the ecological dynamics of natural populations and communities, develop more informed management plans for protection of biodiversity, suggest possible routes to increased productivity and yield in natural and managed biological systems, and resolve inconsistencies in patterns and results seen in studies of different model systems. We find an overall agreement regarding the effects of higher levels of phenotypic variation generated by different sources, but also some differences between fine-grained and coarse-grained environments, modular and unitary organisms, mobile and sessile organisms, and between flexible and fixed traits. We propose ways to test the predictions and identify issues where current knowledge is limited and future lines of investigation promise to provide important novel insights.
近年来，个体间表型变异对种群和物种的表现和生态成功的影响引起了越来越多的关注。该领域早期的综述通常涉及特定变异源（可塑性或多态性）对种群过程的影响，或者考虑种群表现的一个特定方面，例如物种形成的速度。在这里，我们采取了更广泛的方法来研究早期的综述，以便总结和比较源于遗传多态性、发育可塑性或随机表型转换的表型变异对几个种群水平后果的预测。揭示变异的因果关系可能会提高我们理解自然种群和群落生态动态的能力，为保护生物多样性制定更明智的管理计划，为自然和管理生物系统的生产力和产量的提高提供可能的途径，并解决不同模型系统研究中观察到的模式和结果的不一致性。我们发现，不同来源产生的更高水平的表型变异的影响总体上是一致的，但在细粒度和粗粒度环境、模块化和整体生物体、移动和固着生物体以及灵活和固定特征之间也存在一些差异。我们提出了一些检验这些预测的方法，并确定了当前知识有限的问题，以及未来的研究方向有望提供重要的新见解。
