Phenotypic plasticity of ecotypes across habitats

Abstract

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a genotype to produce multiple phenotypes depending on the environmental conditions and it can allow persistence of populations in heterogeneous habitats or under climate change. Therefore, phenotypic plasticity can play a major role in the divergence of populations across habitats. Trade-offs in plant performance in various habitats can give rise to the evolution of specialized ecotypes which are locally adapted (specialized) populations of the same species in distinct environments. According to the specialization hypothesis, specialization of ecotypes to either relatively favorable or unfavorable habitats results in increased or decreased phenotypic plasticity, respectively. The presence of phenotypic plasticity differences among ecotypes can be easily detected by examining their performances at home (native) versus foreign (alien) environments in reciprocal field experiments. In this meta-analysis, I compared phenotypic plasticity of ecotypes specialized in favorable and unfavorable habitats to test the specialization hypothesis by extracting data from 47 empirical studies. Log response ratio (LRR) and plasticity index (PIv) were used as effect sizes to detect and quantify significant differences in phenotypic plasticity of ecotypes across habitats. The overall result indicated that it was failed to find an effect of habitat origin on phenotypic plasticity expression of ecotypes. Specialization to either favorable or unfavorable habitats may not alter phenotypic plasticity expression in ecotypes. The interplay between phenotypic plasticity and specialization is quite complex and results of this study may shed light into these two important evolutionary mechanisms in plant ecology which have implications for biodiversity conservation, environmental management, agricultural industry, and ecosystem services.