Institute of Oceanography, Polish Academy of Sciences, Powstańców Warszawy 55, 81-712, Sopot, Poland.
Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, USA.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 13;12(1):11883. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-15583-y.
Phenotypic plasticity is widely regarded as important for enabling species resilience to environmental change and for species evolution. However, insight into the complex mechanisms by which phenotypic plasticity evolves in nature is limited by our ability to reconstruct evolutionary histories of plasticity. By using part of the molecular mechanism, we were able to trace the evolution of pre-feeding phenotypic plasticity across the class Echinoidea and identify the origin of plasticity at the base of the regular urchins. The neurosensory foundation for plasticity was ancestral within the echinoids. However, coincident development of the plastic trait and the neurosensory system was not achieved until the regular urchins, likely due to pleiotropic effects and linkages between the two colocalized systems. Plasticity continues to evolve within the urchins with numerous instances of losses associated with loss of sensory abilities and neurons, consistent with a cost of maintaining these capabilities. Thus, evidence was found for the neurosensory system providing opportunities and constraints to the evolution of phenotypic plasticity.
表型可塑性被广泛认为对于物种适应环境变化和物种进化至关重要。然而，由于我们重建可塑性进化历史的能力有限，因此对自然中表型可塑性进化的复杂机制的了解有限。通过使用部分分子机制，我们能够追踪棘皮动物门中摄食前表型可塑性的进化，并确定在规则海胆基部的可塑性起源。可塑性的神经感觉基础在海胆中是祖先的。然而，直到规则海胆，可塑性特征和神经感觉系统的同时发育才得以实现，这可能是由于多效性效应和两个共定位系统之间的联系。可塑性在海胆中继续进化，伴随着许多与感觉能力和神经元丧失相关的丧失实例，这与维持这些能力的成本一致。因此，有证据表明神经感觉系统为表型可塑性的进化提供了机会和限制。
