Leimar Olof, McNamara John M
Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Am Nat. 2015 Mar;185(3):E55-69. doi: 10.1086/679575. Epub 2015 Jan 13.
An organism's phenotype can be influenced by maternal cues and directly perceived environmental cues, as well as by its genotype at polymorphic loci, which can be interpreted as a genetic cue. In fluctuating environments, natural selection favors organisms that efficiently integrate different sources of information about the likely success of phenotypic alternatives. In such situations, it can be beneficial to pass on maternal cues that offspring can respond to. A maternal cue could be based on environmental cues directly perceived by the mother but also partly on cues that were passed on by the grandmother. We have used a mathematical model to investigate how the passing of maternal cues and the integration of different sources of information evolve in response to qualitatively different kinds of temporal and spatial environmental fluctuations. The model shows that the passing of maternal cues and the transgenerational integration of sources of information readily evolve. Factors such as the degree of temporal autocorrelation, the predictive accuracy of different environmental cues, and the level of gene flow strongly influence the expression of adaptive maternal cues and the relative weights given to different sources of information. We outline the main features of the relation between the characteristics of environmental fluctuations and the adaptive systems of phenotype determination and compare these predictions with empirical studies on cue integration.
生物体的表型可受母体线索、直接感知的环境线索以及多态位点的基因型（可被视为一种遗传线索）影响。在波动的环境中，自然选择青睐那些能有效整合有关表型替代方案可能成功的不同信息来源的生物体。在这种情况下，传递后代能够做出反应的母体线索可能是有益的。母体线索可能基于母亲直接感知的环境线索，但也部分基于祖母传递的线索。我们使用了一个数学模型来研究母体线索的传递以及不同信息来源的整合如何随着时间和空间上性质不同的环境波动而演变。该模型表明，母体线索的传递和信息来源的跨代整合很容易进化。诸如时间自相关程度、不同环境线索的预测准确性以及基因流动水平等因素，强烈影响适应性母体线索的表达以及赋予不同信息来源的相对权重。我们概述了环境波动特征与表型决定适应性系统之间关系的主要特征，并将这些预测与关于线索整合的实证研究进行比较。
