Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Aquatic Ecology, Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2021 Dec 7;11(1):23518. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02841-8.
Species react to environmental change via plastic and evolutionary responses. While both of them determine species' survival, most studies quantify these responses individually. As species occur in communities, competing species may further influence their respective response to environmental change. Yet, how environmental change and competing species combined shape plastic and genetic responses to environmental change remains unclear. Quantifying how competition alters plastic and genetic responses of species to environmental change requires a trait-based, community and evolutionary ecological approach. We exposed unicellular aquatic organisms to long-term selection of increasing salinity-representing a common and relevant environmental change. We assessed plastic and genetic contributions to phenotypic change in biomass, cell shape, and dispersal ability along increasing levels of salinity in the presence and absence of competition. Trait changes in response to salinity were mainly due to mean trait evolution, and differed whether species evolved in the presence or absence of competition. Our results show that species' evolutionary and plastic responses to environmental change depended both on competition and the magnitude of environmental change, ultimately determining species persistence. Our results suggest that understanding plastic and genetic responses to environmental change within a community will improve predictions of species' persistence to environmental change.
物种通过可塑性和进化响应来应对环境变化。虽然这两者都决定了物种的生存，但大多数研究都是单独量化这些响应的。由于物种存在于群落中，竞争物种可能会进一步影响它们各自对环境变化的响应。然而，环境变化和竞争物种如何共同塑造物种对环境变化的可塑性和遗传响应尚不清楚。量化竞争如何改变物种对环境变化的可塑性和遗传响应需要一种基于特征、群落和进化生态学的方法。我们让单细胞水生生物长期暴露在盐度增加的选择压力下，这代表了一种常见且相关的环境变化。我们评估了在有或没有竞争的情况下，生物量、细胞形状和扩散能力等表型变化的可塑性和遗传贡献，以及盐度增加时的表型变化。对盐度的性状变化主要是由于平均性状进化引起的，并且在物种是否在有或没有竞争的情况下进化时存在差异。我们的结果表明，物种对环境变化的进化和可塑性响应既取决于竞争，也取决于环境变化的程度，最终决定了物种的持久性。我们的结果表明，在群落中理解对环境变化的可塑性和遗传响应将提高对物种对环境变化的持久性的预测。
