Talking Evolution

Session

Phenotypic Plasticity

27 Sept 2018, 09:00

10. Keynote: The role of phenotypic plasticity in adaptation and population persistence in new environments

Luis-Miguel Chevin

27/09/2018, 09:00

Phenotypic plasticity, once a somewhat controversial topic in evolution, is now more broadly recognized as an important mechanism by which organisms can tolerate variable environments and avoid extinction. In particular, it is now understood that phenotypic plasticity does not necessarily counteract evolution by natural selection, and that investigating the origins of phenotypic diversity...

11. Local adaptation and the macroevolutionary dynamics of phenological plasticity

Stephen De Lisle

27/09/2018, 10:15

Theory predicts that adaptive plasticity in fitness-related traits may play a key role in establishment in novel environments, persistence in changing environments, and allopatric speciation. Yet testing these hypotheses is difficult, especially at the macroevolutionary level, due to the inherent difficulty of measuring plasticity. We exploit recent methodical advances to estimate the strength...

12. A classifying framework that clarifies the different routes towards adaptive evolution

Pim Edelaar, Pim Edelaar

27/09/2018, 10:30

Evolutionary adaptation is typically accredited to natural selection. However, natural selection can only adapt populations, and by itself has little to offer to locally maladapted individuals. Because of this, flexible individual responses have evolved that can help individuals to increase their fitness. By means of a simple yet apparently comprehensive classification framework, I will derive...

13. Evolutionary implications of plasticity: insights from wall lizard embryos

Nathalie Feiner

27/09/2018, 10:45

Gene expression is inherently plastic, and the expression profiles of ectotherm embryos differ substantially between incubation temperatures. We used an experimental approach to understand the relationship between short-term plastic responses and long-term evolutionary responses in transcriptomes. Wall lizards have been introduced to the UK numerous times over the last century, and several...

14. Keynote: Eco-Devo Insights to Evolution: A Case Study in 3 Big Questions

Sonia Sultan

27/09/2018, 11:15

Our understanding of adaptive evolution is grounded in a deterministic view of genetic variants. Yet development takes shape through the interaction of an organism’s genotype with its environment, an interaction that can be surprisingly complex both within and across generations. How does this causal entanglement change our view of evolution? Ecological developmental biology explicitly...

15. Adaptation without selection: possible explanations

Andrei Granovitch

27/09/2018, 13:30

Term “adaptation” means a feature or set of features making organism fitting to its environment. Adaptation as a process (making an organism adapted) is traditionally interpreted as being inextricably linked with action of natural selection (NS) as a main forming force during speciation. Nevertheless, there are at least two conceivable explanations of the fact of “organism to environment...

16. Selection on function-valued traits: thermal plasticity and thermal canalization in the wild

Erik Svensson

27/09/2018, 13:45

Phenotypic plasticity and its converse (canalization) have been subject to many theoretical and empirical studies. Theory suggests that adaptive phenotypic plasticity can evolve in temporally or spatially heterogeneous environments through selection on the slopes or intercepts of reaction norms. For instance, Lande (2009, J. Evol. Biol. 22: 1435-1446) modelled reaction norm evolution following...

17. Discusson/ mini-talks Phenotypic Plasticity

Daniel Romero Mujalli (Poster), Helen Spence-Jones (Poster), Luis-Miguel Chevin (discussion panel), Rienk Fokkema (Poster), Sonia Sultan (discussion panel)

27/09/2018, 14:00

With mini-talks by poster presenters Rienk Fokkema, Daniel Romero Mujalli, Helen Spence-Jones, Mark Chapman