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Multivariate responses to flooding in Arabidopsis : an experimental evolutionary investigation
Author(s) -
Kolodynska A.,
Pigliucci M.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
functional ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.272
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1365-2435
pISSN - 0269-8463
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2435.2003.00714.x
Subject(s) - biology , selection (genetic algorithm) , natural selection , directional selection , multivariate statistics , disruptive selection , stabilizing selection , evolutionary biology , phenotypic plasticity , population , ecology , genetic architecture , sorting , sexual selection , quantitative genetics , flooding (psychology) , phenotype , genetic variation , genetics , statistics , gene , demography , mathematics , artificial intelligence , sociology , computer science , programming language , psychology , psychotherapist
Summary1 Response to selection in different environments has been investigated in the model system Arabidopsis thaliana in order to determine the changes in heritabilities, reaction norms, relationships with reproductive fitness, and character correlations induced by the selection regimes and by alterations of environmental conditions (flood vs normal water levels). 2 Our artificial population responded to selection mostly by line sorting, where some of the initial genotypes increased significantly in frequency over three generations, while others went extinct. This is probably how selection works in natural populations of this species. 3 We observed changes in the heritabilities of various traits in response to selection and experimental treatments, with morphological characters exhibiting higher heritabilities than life‐history traits. 4 The selection process did not alter the overall shape of the reaction norms of various characters, but did lower the phenotypic means of several traits in the same direction of plasticity imposed by flooding. Most characters were under directional selection throughout the experiment, though in the opposite direction from the actual shift in their means at the end of the experiment. 5 The multivariate architecture of this plant was affected more by selection than by environmental changes.