Avalo, Durham, North Carolina, 27701.
Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 27708.
Evolution. 2021 Nov;75(11):2773-2790. doi: 10.1111/evo.14367. Epub 2021 Oct 18.
Environments influence the expression of phenotypes of individuals, their progeny, and even their grandprogeny. The duration of environmental effects and how they are modified by subsequent environments are predicted to be targets of natural selection in variable environments. However, little is known about the genetic basis of the temporal persistence of environmental effects and their stability of expression across subsequent environments, or even the extent to which natural genotypes differ in these attributes of environmental effects. We factorially manipulated the thermal environment experienced in three successive generations, to quantify the temporal persistence and environmental stability of temperature effects in contrasting genotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana. We found that genotypes differed in the manner in which environmental effects dissipated across successive generations, the manner in which responses to ancestral environments were stably expressed in present environments, the manner in which ancestral environments altered responses to present environments, and in the manner in which ancestral environments altered fitness in present conditions. Genetic variation exists in nature for these trait-specific environmental responses, suggesting that the temporal persistence and stability of environmental effects in variable environments have the potential to evolve in response to natural selection imposed by different environments and sequences of environments.
环境会影响个体、其后代甚至孙代的表型表达。在多变的环境中，环境影响的持续时间以及它们如何被后续环境改变，预计将成为自然选择的目标。然而，对于环境影响的时间持久性及其在后续环境中的表达稳定性的遗传基础，甚至对于自然基因型在这些环境影响属性上的差异程度，我们知之甚少。我们在三个连续的世代中人为地改变了所经历的热环境，以量化拟南芥不同基因型中温度影响的时间持久性和环境稳定性。我们发现，基因型在环境影响随世代逐渐消失的方式、对祖先环境的反应在当前环境中稳定表达的方式、祖先环境改变对当前环境的反应的方式以及祖先环境改变当前条件下适应性的方式上存在差异。自然界中存在这些具有特定性状的环境反应的遗传变异，这表明在多变环境中，环境影响的时间持久性和稳定性有可能随着不同环境和环境序列施加的自然选择而进化。
