Selection on Heritable Phenotypic Plasticity in a Wild Bird Population

Nussey, Daniel H.; Postma, Erik; Gienapp, Phillip; Visser, Marcel E.

doi:10.1126/science.1117004

Cited by 607 publications

(728 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Together with the binary nature of our measure, this means that we could not easily explore innovation plasticity within individuals using a reaction norm approach [124,131 -134]. Such an approach might allow for G Â E and non-constant additive genetic variation to be detected and characterized [3].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The great tit (Parus major) is a small iteroparous, socially monogamous and sexually dimorphic songbird, and for decades has been an influential model organism in many different areas of research including life-history variation [66], optimal foraging [67], phenotypic plasticity [3,68], evolutionary dynamics [69] and personality [44,70]. Strong selection on timing reproduction to coincide with peak caterpillar abundance has also made the great tit an important model species for the study of the phenology of trophic interactions [71].…”

Section: (A) the Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plasticity and microevolution are not necessarily independent processes, however, because the extent to which traits change over a gradient might also be heritable [3,4]. In general, the majority of evolutionary ecology studies in wild populations have primarily focused on morphological and life-history traits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

Quinn

Cole

Reed

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 15 to a theme issue 'Innovation in animals and humans: understanding the origins and development of novel and creative behaviour'. Much of the evidence for the idea that individuals differ in their propensity to innovate and solve new problems has come from studies on captive primates. Increasingly, behavioural ecologists are studying innovativeness in wild populations, and uncovering links with functional behaviour and fitnessrelated traits. The relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving this variation, however, remains unknown. Here, we present the results of the first large-scale study to examine a range of causal factors underlying innovative problem-solving performance (PSP) among 831 great tits (Parus major) temporarily taken into captivity. Analyses show that PSP in this population: (i) was linked to a variety of individual factors, including age, personality and natal origin (immigrant or local-born); (ii) was influenced by natal environment, because individuals had a lower PSP when born in poor-quality habitat, or where local population density was high, leading to cohort effects. Links with many of the individual and environmental factors were present only in some years. In addition, PSP (iii) had little or no measurable heritability, as estimated by a Bayesian animal model; and (iv) was not influenced by maternal effects. Despite previous reports of links between PSP and a range of functional traits in this population, the analyses here suggest that innovativeness had weak if any evolutionary potential. Instead most individual variation was caused by phenotypic plasticity driven by links with other behavioural traits and by environmentally mediated developmental stress. Heritability estimates are population, time and context specific, however, and more studies are needed to determine the generality of these effects. Our results shed light on the causes of innovativeness within populations, and add to the debate on the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving phenotypic variation within populations.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (A) the Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

Quinn

Cole

Reed

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Recent work has shown that individual birds are remarkably flexible in their timing of breeding in a changing climate, allowing them to closely track changes in the environment [12][13][14]. This plasticity represents the ability of a single genotype to alter its phenotype in response to changing environmental conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change and the risks associated with delayed breeding in a tropical wild bird population

Senapathi

Nicoll

Teplitsky³

et al. 2011

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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There is growing evidence of changes in the timing of important ecological events, such as flowering in plants and reproduction in animals, in response to climate change, with implications for population decline and biodiversity loss. Recent work has shown that the timing of breeding in wild birds is changing in response to climate change partly because individuals are remarkably flexible in their timing of breeding. Despite this work, our understanding of these processes in wild populations remains very limited and biased towards species from temperate regions. Here, we report the response to changing climate in a tropical wild bird population using a long-term dataset on a formerly critically endangered island endemic, the Mauritius kestrel. We show that the frequency of spring rainfall affects the timing of breeding, with birds breeding later in wetter springs. Delays in breeding have consequences in terms of reduced reproductive success as birds get exposed to risks associated with adverse climatic conditions later on in the breeding season, which reduce nesting success. These results, combined with the fact that frequency of spring rainfall has increased by about 60 per cent in our study area since 1962, imply that climate change is exposing birds to the stochastic risks of late reproduction by causing them to start breeding relatively late in the season.

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“…Variation in quality can have environmental (McNamara, 1998) or genetic (Nussey, Postma, Gienapp, & Visser, 2005) origins. For example, individuals who experience favorable environmental conditions early in life, known as “silver spoon” effects, can have reduced costs of reproduction throughout their lives (Vetter et al., 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual quality and age but not environmental or social conditions modulate costs of reproduction in a capital breeder

Debeffe

Poissant

McLoughlin

2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Costs associated with reproduction are widely known to play a role in the evolution of reproductive tactics with consequences to population and eco‐evolutionary dynamics. Evaluating these costs as they pertain to species in the wild remains an important goal of evolutionary ecology. Individual heterogeneity, including differences in individual quality (i.e., among‐individual differences in traits associated with survival and reproduction) or state, and variation in environmental and social conditions can modulate the costs of reproduction; however, few studies have considered effects of these factors simultaneously. Taking advantage of a detailed, long‐term dataset for a population of feral horses (Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada), we address the question of how intrinsic (quality, age), environmental (winter severity, location), and social conditions (group size, composition, sex ratio, density) influence the costs of reproduction on subsequent reproduction. Individual quality was measured using a multivariate analysis on a combination of four static and dynamic traits expected to depict heterogeneity in individual performance. Female quality and age interacted with reproductive status of the previous year to determine current reproductive effort, while no effect of social or environmental covariates was found. High‐quality females showed higher probabilities of giving birth and weaning their foal regardless of their reproductive status the previous year, while those of lower quality showed lower probabilities of producing foals in successive years. Middle‐aged (prime) females had the highest probability of giving birth when they had not reproduced the year before, but no such relationship with age was found among females that had reproduced the previous year, indicating that prime‐aged females bear higher costs of reproduction. We show that individual quality and age were key factors modulating the costs of reproduction in a capital breeder but that environmental or social conditions were not, highlighting the importance of considering multiple factors when studying costs of reproduction.

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Selection on Heritable Phenotypic Plasticity in a Wild Bird Population

Cited by 607 publications

References 21 publications

Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

Climate change and the risks associated with delayed breeding in a tropical wild bird population

Individual quality and age but not environmental or social conditions modulate costs of reproduction in a capital breeder

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