Negative relationship between thermal tolerance and plasticity in tolerance emerges during experimental evolution in a widespread marine invertebrate

Whether populations can adapt to predicted climate change conditions, and how rapidly, are critical questions for the management of natural systems. Experimental evolution has become an important tool to answer these questions. In order to provide useful, realistic insights into the adaptive response of populations to climate change, there needs to be careful consideration of how genetic differentiation and phenotypic plasticity interact to generate observed phenotypic changes. We exposed three populations of the widespread copepod Acartia tonsa (Crustacea) to chronic, sublethal temperature selection for 15 generations. We generated thermal survivorship curves at regular intervals both during and after this period of selection to track the evolution of thermal tolerance. Using reciprocal transplants between ambient and warming conditions, we also tracked changes in the strength of phenotypic plasticity in thermal tolerance. We observed significant increases in thermal tolerance in the Warming lineages, while plasticity in thermal tolerance was strongly reduced. We suggest these changes are driven by a negative relationship between thermal tolerance and plasticity in thermal tolerance. Our results indicate that adaptation to warming through an increase in thermal tolerance might not reduce vulnerability to climate change if the increase comes at the expense of tolerance plasticity. These results illustrate the importance of considering changes in both a trait of interest and the trait plasticity during experimental evolution.