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Phenotypic plasticity for life history traits in Drosophila melanogaster . II. Epigenetic mechanisms and the scaling of variances
Author(s) -
Gebhardt M. D.,
Stearns S. C.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1420-9101.1993.6010017.x
Subject(s) - biology , phenotypic plasticity , drosophila melanogaster , gene–environment interaction , quantitative genetics , genetic variation , phenotype , drosophila (subgenus) , genetics , genotype , evolutionary biology , life history theory , heritability , variation (astronomy) , ecology , gene , life history , physics , astrophysics
We manipulated developmental time and dry weight at eclosion in 15 genotypes of Drosophila melanogaster by growing the larvae in 9 environments defined by 3 yeast concentrations at 3 temperatures. We observed how the genetic and various environmental components of phenotypic variation scaled with the mean values of the traits. Temperature, yeast, within‐environmental factors and genotype influenced the genotypic and environmental standard deviations of the two traits in patterns that point to very different modes of physiological and developmental action of these factors. Since different factors affected the environmental and genetic components of the phenotypic variation either in parallel or inversely, we conclude that environmental heterogeneity may have small or large effects on evolutionary rates depending on which factors cause the heterogeneity. The analysis also suggests that the scaling of variances with the mean is not as trivial as is often assumed when coefficients of variation are computed to “standardize” variation.