Complex Patterns of Phenotypic Plasticity: Interactive Effects of Temperature During Rearing and Oviposition

Abstract

Temperature profoundly affects growth and life history traits in ectothermic animals through selection (i.e., genetic) and through direct effects on the phenotype (i.e., nongenetic/plasticity). We examined the effects of rearing temperature (24Њ, 30Њ, and 36ЊC) on adult body size and development time and the interactive effects of temperature experienced during rearing and oviposition on several life history traits (age-at-first-reproduction, fecundity, egg size, egg development, and egg hatching) in two populations of the seed beetle, Stator limbatus, collected at different elevations. The higher elevation population was larger and matured sooner than the low-elevation population when raised at the lower temperature, but the reverse was true at the higher temperature suggesting that these populations have adapted to local temperature. There were interactions between the effects of rearing temperature and oviposition temperature for age-at-first-reproduction, fecundity, egg development, egg hatching, and two composite measures of fitness, generating complex reaction norms. The most dramatic example of this was a large maternal effect on egg hatching; females raised at low temperature produced eggs that had substantially reduced hatching when laid at high temperature. Our experimental design also allowed us to explore the adaptive significance of acclimation. Beetles reared at intermediate or low temperature had the highest fitness at multiple oviposition temperatures. There was little support for the ''beneficial acclimation hypothesis,'' which predicts that beetles should have higher fitness at the temperature at which they were reared; acclimation had only a small effect on fitness. This study shows that temperature-mediated plasticity can be complex, but these complex patterns can yield new insights into the evolution of phenotypic plasticity.

Effect of incubation temperature on growth performance in Atlantic salmon

“…Intraspecific variation in thermal performance has caused considerable ecological debate (Jonsson & Jonsson 2011) and given rise to at least 3 different hypotheses to explain this variation: (1) Growth rate is adap ted to local thermal optima (Levinton 1983, Stillwell & Fox 2005. This implies that variation in growth rate reflects thermal adaptation to conditions in the home environment.…”

Effects of constant and fluctuating temperatures on the development of the solitary bee Osmia bicornis (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

“…Temperature is one of the most important environmental factors for ectotherms and the temperature experienced during development strongly affects growth and many life history traits (Stillwell and Fox 2005;Steigenga and Fischer 2009), e.g. body size and development time (Ratte 1984;Atkinson 1994).…”

Cold rearing improves cold-flight performance inDrosophila viachanges in wing morphology

“…However, many experiments that have explicitly tested for beneficial plasticity or acclimation have rejected this hypothesis (Blanckenhorn, 2000;Gibbs et al, 1998;Gibert et al, 2001;Huey et al, 1995;Leroi et al, 1994;Woods, 1999;Woods and Harrison, 2001;Zamudio et al, 1995) or have had mixed results (Bennett and Lenski, 1997;Carter and Wilson, 2006;Stillwell and Fox, 2005). Together these studies suggest that alternative hypotheses, such as "colder/hotter is better," or "optimal developmental temperature" may be evolutionarily more important than beneficial plasticity and acclimation (Huey et al, 1999).…”