Department of Biology, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN47405, USA.
Department of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
J Exp Biol. 2024 Mar 7;227(Suppl_1). doi: 10.1242/jeb.245976.
Developmental plasticity is an important product of evolutionary processes, allowing organisms to maintain high fitness in the face of environmental perturbations. Once evolved, plasticity also has the potential to influence subsequent evolutionary outcomes, for example, by shaping phenotypic variation visible to selection and facilitating the emergence of novel trait variants. Furthermore, organisms may not just respond to environmental conditions through plasticity but may also actively modify the abiotic and (sym)biotic environments to which they themselves respond, causing plasticity to interact in complex ways with niche construction. Here, we explore developmental mechanisms and evolutionary consequences of plasticity in horned dung beetles. First, we discuss how post-invasion evolution of plasticity in an introduced Onthophagus species facilitated rapid range expansion and concurrent local adaptation of life history and morphology to novel climatic conditions. Second, we discuss how, in addition to plastically responding to variation in nutritional conditions, dung beetles engage in behaviors that modify the environment that they themselves respond to during later development. We document that these environment-modifying behaviors mask heritable variation for life history traits within populations, thereby shielding genetic variants from selection. Such cryptic genetic variation may be released and become selectable when these behaviors are compromised. Together, this work documents the complex interactions between plasticity, symbionts and niche construction, and highlights the usefulness of an integrative Eco-Evo-Devo framework to study the varied mechanisms and consequences of plasticity in development and evolution.
发育可塑性是进化过程的重要产物，使生物能够在面对环境干扰时保持高度适应性。一旦进化，可塑性也有可能影响后续的进化结果，例如通过塑造对选择可见的表型变异，并促进新性状变异的出现。此外，生物不仅可以通过可塑性来应对环境条件，还可以主动改变它们自身所响应的非生物和（共生）生物环境，从而使可塑性以复杂的方式与生态位构建相互作用。在这里，我们探讨了有角粪金龟发育机制和可塑性的进化后果。首先，我们讨论了在引入的 Onthophagus 物种中，可塑性的入侵后进化如何促进了快速的分布范围扩张，并使生活史和形态对新的气候条件发生了协同适应。其次，我们讨论了除了对营养条件的变化进行可塑性响应外，粪金龟还会采取行为来改变它们自身在后期发育中所响应的环境。我们记录到，这些环境改变行为掩盖了种群内生活史特征的可遗传变异，从而使遗传变异免受选择。当这些行为受到干扰时，这种隐蔽的遗传变异可能会被释放并变得可选择。总之，这项工作记录了可塑性、共生体和生态位构建之间的复杂相互作用，并强调了综合生态进化发展框架在研究发育和进化中可塑性的各种机制和后果的有用性。
