Project 14
An experimental test of plasticity-led evolution

Led by Susan Foster, John Baker, John Gibbons, William Cresko, Kevin Laland, Juha Merilä & Matthew Wund

This project aims to understand whether high levels of ancestral plasticity are associated with accelerated evolutionary rates of genetic divergence in three-spine sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus. We are investigating whether standing genetic variation (the traditional expectation), or ancestral patterns of plasticity (the EES expectation) best account for evolutionary change in salt- and freshwater populations.

Publications

Replicated evolutionary inhibition of a complex ancestral behaviour in an adaptive radiation.
[download PDF]
Foster SA, O’Neil S, King RW, Baker JA. 2019. Biol Lett DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0647

Blog posts

Sticklebacks, selection shadows, and salinity shifts: phenotypic plasticity in novel environments
Spence-Jones HC. 1 May 2017.

EES predictions this project tests

i. phenotypic accommodation can precede, rather than follow, genetic change, in adaptive evolution
ii. novel phenotypic variants will frequently be directional and functional
iii. novel, evolutionarily consequential, phenotypic variants will frequently be environmentally induced in multiple individuals
iv. strikingly different novel phenotypes can occur, either through mutation of a major regulatory control gene expressed in a tissue-specific manner, or through facilitated variation
v. repeated evolution in isolated populations may be due to convergent selection and/or developmental bias
vii. rapid phenotypic evolution can be frequent and can result from the simultaneous induction and selection of functional variants
viii. taxonomic diversity will sometimes be better explained by features of developmental systems (evolvability, constraints) than features of environments