Developmental plasticity and evolution—quo vadis?

Abstract

The role of developmental (phenotypic) plasticity in ecology and evolution is receiving a growing appreciation among the biologists, and many plasticity-specific concepts have become well established as part of the mainstream evolutionary biological thinking. In this essay, I posit that despite this progress several key perspectives in developmental plasticity remain remarkably traditional, and that it may be time to re-evaluate their continued usefulness in the face of the available evidence as the field looks to its future. Specifically, I discuss the utility of viewing plastic development as ultimately rooted in genes and genomes, and investigate the common notion that the environment-albeit a critical source of information-nevertheless remains passive, external to and separable from the organism responding to it. I end by highlighting conceptual and empirical opportunities that may permit developmental plasticity research to transcend its current boundaries and to continue its contributions toward a holistic and realistic understanding of organismal development and evolution.

Stress and sex: does cortisol mediate sex change in fish?

“…All three approaches entail modifications to behavior, gonadal restructuring and alterations in external morphology (Warner 1984, Nakamura & Kobayashi 2005, Godwin 2009). Sex change in teleost fish illustrates a dramatic example of environmentally cued phenotypic plasticity unprecedented in any other group of vertebrates (Frisch 2004, Moczek 2015.…”

Assessing elements of an extended evolutionary synthesis for plant domestication and agricultural origin research

“…18 for review). Some prominent evolutionary biologists still question the importance of developmental plasticity in evolutionary change (16), and some of its aspects remain controversial, but a number of its concepts are now well established in evolutionary thinking and practice (17).…”

“…Developmental plasticity is defined as the inherent capacity of a single genotype to rapidly exhibit more than one phenotype through one of several available preadult developmental pathways in direct response to environmental perturbations and stress factors (17,(31)(32)(33). New phenotypic variation is introduced into a population rapidly, without a corresponding genetic change (e.g., without the appearance or spread of a new mutation), in part through the presence of cryptic (preexisting) genetic variation, which does not normally contribute to an organism's phenotype but may be uncovered and released upon exposure to certain environmental or genetic cues (e.g., refs.…”

“…Some question whether EES additions and modifications, such as developmental plasticity and TEI, have been shown to have much evolutionary importance (14,16). An emerging body of literature is clarifying some of these issues (17)(18)(19).…”

Accurate systematic frameworks are vital to advance ecological and evolutionary studies, with an example from Australian freshwater fish (Hypseleotris)

“…Phylogenetic studies can lead to an inference of evolutionary patterns resulting from speciation, and attempt to understand the mechanics of the processes, but precisely what happened or why things developed as they did will always be difficult to know at a such a distance (Moczek 2015). Further, as far as we are aware, there is no evidence of this type of life-history plasticity in contemporary populations of carp gudgeons, and even if there were, that would not mean that the ancestors were similarly plastic.…”