Open AccessRapid local adaptation linked with phenotypic plasticity
Author(s) -
Sun SyuanJyun,
Catherall Andrew M.,
Pascoal Sonia,
Jarrett Benjamin J. M.,
Miller Sara E.,
Sheehan Michael J.,
Kilner Rebecca M.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
evolution letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2056-3744
DOI - 10.1002/evl3.176
Subject(s) - biology , evolutionary biology , adaptation (eye) , local adaptation , phenotypic plasticity , carrion , fecundity , ecology , convergent evolution , population , zoology , genetics , phylogenetics , demography , neuroscience , sociology , gene
Models of “plasticity‐first” evolution are attractive because they explain the rapid evolution of new complex adaptations. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether plasticity can facilitate rapid microevolutionary change between diverging populations. Here, we show how plasticity may have generated adaptive differences in fecundity between neighboring wild populations of burying beetles Nicrophorus vespilloides . These populations occupy distinct Cambridgeshire woodlands that are just 2.5 km apart and that probably originated from a common ancestral population about 1000‐4000 years ago. We find that populations are divergently adapted to breed on differently sized carrion. Adaptive differences in clutch size and egg size are associated with divergence at loci connected with oogenesis. The populations differ specifically in the elevation of the reaction norm linking clutch size to carrion size (i.e., genetic accommodation), and in the likelihood that surplus offspring will be lost after hatching. We suggest that these two processes may have facilitated rapid local adaptation on a fine‐grained spatial scale.