Departamento de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
School of Natural Sciences, Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Ecol Lett. 2021 Nov;24(11):2378-2393. doi: 10.1111/ele.13858. Epub 2021 Aug 5.
Genetic differentiation and phenotypic plasticity jointly shape intraspecific trait variation, but their roles differ among traits. In short-lived plants, reproductive traits may be more genetically determined due to their impact on fitness, whereas vegetative traits may show higher plasticity to buffer short-term perturbations. Combining a multi-treatment greenhouse experiment with observational field data throughout the range of a widespread short-lived herb, Plantago lanceolata, we (1) disentangled genetic and plastic responses of functional traits to a set of environmental drivers and (2) assessed how genetic differentiation and plasticity shape observational trait-environment relationships. Reproductive traits showed distinct genetic differentiation that largely determined observational patterns, but only when correcting traits for differences in biomass. Vegetative traits showed higher plasticity and opposite genetic and plastic responses, masking the genetic component underlying field-observed trait variation. Our study suggests that genetic differentiation may be inferred from observational data only for the traits most closely related to fitness.
遗传分化和表型可塑性共同塑造了种内性状变异，但它们在不同性状中的作用不同。在短命植物中，由于生殖性状对适应度的影响，其可能更多地受到遗传决定，而营养性状可能表现出更高的可塑性以缓冲短期的干扰。我们通过一个多处理温室实验和在一个广泛分布的短命草本植物车前草的整个分布范围内的观测野外数据，（1）分解了功能性状对一系列环境驱动因素的遗传和可塑性响应，（2）评估了遗传分化和可塑性如何塑造观测到的性状-环境关系。生殖性状表现出明显的遗传分化，这在很大程度上决定了观测模式，但只有在对生物量差异进行性状校正时才会出现这种情况。营养性状表现出更高的可塑性和相反的遗传和可塑性响应，掩盖了野外观察到的性状变异的遗传成分。我们的研究表明，只有与适应度最密切相关的性状，才能从观测数据中推断出遗传分化。
