Speaker
Description
Maladaptive changes in the environment can provoke an adaptive response, but also induce plastic changes in organisms. Here we derive a general model of the effects of maladaptation on vitals rates—recruitment and adult mortality—in order to explore plasticity in generation time in threatened populations. We find that generation time can shift considerably during the process of evolutionary rescue, accelerating or decelerating the pace of adaptation. These shifts can be predicted by comparing the mechanism of density-dependent population regulation to the effects of maladaptation—when these two forces have differing effects on demography, then generation time is subject to plasticity. These results will inform how we might make predictions about the likelihood of rescue that are specific to the ecology of each threatened species.
