Response to Lea et al.’s developmental plasticity

My comments on Lea et al.’s review discussing “developmental plasticity: bridging research in evolution human health” will focus on the implications of developmental plasticity on human life history parameters. Today, it is well-known that members of the same sex, age and even species differ dramatically in anatomical, physiological and behavioral traits and that this kind of variation is due to that each individual has the capacity respond to environmental circumstances in more than one way [1]. Consequently a given genotype may generate multiple phenotypes depending on environmental conditions experienced by the organism during critical phases of individual development [2]. Of special importance are early life circumstances which clearly have a profound impact not only on phenotypic parameters and behavior but also on life history and health and disease during later life. Scientific community should receive with satisfaction the review paper of Lea et al. since it provides an impressive overview of evolutionary explanations for developing plasticity, and discussed genetic, genomic and molecular mechanism of developmental plasticity extensively. Although so many important topics were treated in the review, the importance of developmental plasticity for human life history traits however was neglected. Therefore I would like to comment about the effects of developmental plasticity on selected traits of human life history. From the viewpoint of human health research, one of the main research questions that enlivened the debate on the long-term consequences of the interplay between the developing organism and the circumstances in which it finds itself is in which way early environmental circumstances enhances or hamper human growth, maturation and reproductive phase, three important parameters of human life history with important implications for public health research [3]. Especially important criteria for health and well-being of children are growth patterns and maturation. Consequently, the analysis of the impact of developmental plasticity on individual differences in growth patterns provide crucial information for the detection of pathologic conditions and may be long-term health effects. Developmental plasticity and life history events have been interpreted from the viewpoint of the developmental constraints model as well as predictive model. As evolutionary response to targeted reviews 181