Bolton Peri E, Rollins Lee A, Griffith Simon C
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.
Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Vic., 3217, Australia.
Mol Ecol. 2015 Jun;24(12):2907-15. doi: 10.1111/mec.13201. Epub 2015 May 14.
Polymorphic species have been the focus of important work in evolutionary biology. It has been suggested that colour polymorphic species have specific evolutionary and population dynamics that enable them to persist through environmental changes better than less variable species. We suggest that recent empirical and theoretical work indicates that polymorphic species may be more vulnerable to extinction than previously thought. This vulnerability arises because these species often have a number of correlated sexual, behavioural, life history and ecological traits, which can have a simple genetic underpinning. When exacerbated by environmental change, these alternate strategies can lead to conflict between morphs at the genomic and population levels, which can directly or indirectly affect population and evolutionary dynamics. In this perspective, we identify a number of ways in which the nature of the correlated traits, their underpinning genetic architecture, and the inevitable interactions between colour morphs can result in a reduction in population fitness. The principles illustrated here apply to all kinds of discrete polymorphism (e.g. behavioural syndromes), but we focus primarily on colour polymorphism because they are well studied. We urge further empirical investigation of the genetic architecture and interactions in polymorphic species to elucidate the impact on population fitness.
多态物种一直是进化生物学重要研究工作的焦点。有人提出，颜色多态物种具有特定的进化和种群动态，这使它们比变异较少的物种更能在环境变化中存续下来。我们认为，近期的实证和理论研究表明，多态物种可能比之前认为的更容易灭绝。这种脆弱性的出现是因为这些物种通常具有许多相关的性别、行为、生活史和生态特征，这些特征可能有简单的遗传基础。当受到环境变化的加剧影响时，这些交替策略可能会在基因组和种群水平上导致形态之间的冲突，这可能直接或间接地影响种群和进化动态。从这个角度来看，我们确定了一些方式，相关特征的性质、其基础遗传结构以及颜色形态之间不可避免的相互作用可能导致种群适应性降低。这里阐述的原理适用于所有类型的离散多态性（如行为综合征），但我们主要关注颜色多态性，因为它们得到了充分研究。我们敦促对多态物种的遗传结构和相互作用进行进一步的实证研究，以阐明其对种群适应性的影响。
