26-28 September 2018
Europe/Berlin timezone
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Spatial heterogeneity induces selection on a system of adaptive epigenetic induction

28 Sep 2018, 10:00
15m

Speaker

Philip Greenspoon

Description

Evidence that non-genetic traits can be transmitted to future generations has caused a surge in interest in epigenetic inheritance. If it were found to be common across species that adaptive traits acquired during an organism’s lifetime can be passed on to future generations it would prompt a rethinking of evolutionary theory. Yet solid evidence for epigenetic changes being both adaptive and heritable (i.e., adaptive epimutation) is scarce. What features of a species would make it most prone to evolve a system of adaptive epimutation? Here we use a mathematical model to investigate if and when adaptive epimutation would be expected to evolve when selection pressure varies spatially. We show that spatial variation in selection provides indirect selection for adaptive epimutation. When the migration rate is low, the strength of indirect selection in favour of adaptive epimutation increases with the migration rate between patches. Yet, when migration rate becomes larger, the opposite trend is observed. We predict that species with moderate migration rates inhabiting heterogeneous environments would be most likely to evolve systems of adaptive epimutation, but only if costs of producing such systems are not too high.

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