Reavaliando os custos e limites da plasticidade fenotípica adaptiva

Re-evaluating the costs and limits of adaptive phenotypic plasticity

Josh R. Auld1,*†, Anurag A. Agrawal2 and Rick A. Relyea1

- Author Affiliations

1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, 101 Clapp Hall, 4249 5th Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA

2Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, E425 Corson Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

*Author for correspondence (josh.auld@cefe.cnrs.fr, joshrauld@gmail.com).

Abstract

When the optimal phenotype differs among environments, adaptive phenotypic plasticity can evolve unless constraints impede such evolution. Costs and limits of plasticity have been proposed as important constraints on the evolution of plasticity, yet confusion exists over their distinction. We attempt to clarify these concepts by reviewing their categorization and measurement, highlighting how costs and limits are defined in different currencies (and may describe the same phenomenon). Conclusions from studies that measure the costs of plasticity have been equivocal, but we caution that these conclusions may be premature owing to a potentially common correlation between environment-specific trait values and the magnitude of trait plasticities (i.e. multi-collinearity) that results in imprecise and/or biased estimates of the costs. Meanwhile, our understanding of the limits of plasticity, and how they may be underlain by the costs of plasticity, is still in its infancy. Based on our re-evaluation of these constraints, we discuss areas for future research.

adaptation canalization constraint cost of defence homeostasis phenotypic stability

Footnotes

↵† Present address: CEFE—UMR 5175, CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier cedex 5, France.

Received July 29, 2009.
Accepted September 28, 2009.
© 2009 The Royal Society

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