ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2010
Fluctuating selection: the perpetual renewal of adaptation in variable environments.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 139 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
139 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 430 citations in OpenAlex.
- A cosmopolitan inversion facilitates seasonal adaptation in overwintering Drosophila.Genetics · 2024Pooled it
- Dissecting Fluctuating Selection: A Unified Population and Quantitative Genetics Framework.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Divergent Thermal Reaction Norms of the Spontaneous Mutation Rate Among Populations of Chironomus riparius.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- The Paraphyletic Origins of Genetic Resistance to Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle inPlant-environment interactions (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Strong amplification of quantitative genetic variation under a balance between mutation and fluctuating stabilizing selection.Genetics · 2026Article
- Back to the future 2: the implications of germplasm structure on the balance between short- and long-term genetic gain in a changing target population of environments.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- A Flexible Method for Genomics-Based Quantitative Genetics in Wild Study Systems-A Case Study on a House Sparrow Meta-Population.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Genetic Footprints of Seasonal Fluctuating Selection: A Comparison With Established Selection Forms.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Adaptive tracking with antagonistic pleiotropy results in seemingly neutral molecular evolution.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Ecological stoichiometry and life history theory, not the identity of genomic variants, predict rapid adaptation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Epigenetic Potential and Dispersal Propensity in a Free-Living Songbird: A Spatial and Temporal Approach.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Precise lineage tracking using molecular barcodes demonstrates fitness trade-offs for ivermectin resistance in nematodes.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Pollination effectiveness affects the level of generalisation of a plant species with phenotypically plastic flowers.AoB PLANTS · 2025Article
- Individual Mechanical Energy Expenditure Regimens Vary Seasonally with Weather, Sex, Age and Body Condition in a Generalist Carnivore Population: Support for Inter-Individual Tactical Diversity.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Life-history trade-offs and reproductive strategies in Tasmanian devils following disease-induced population decline.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
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- Models of Fluctuating Selection Between Generations: A Solution for the Theoretical Inconsistency.Journal of molecular evolution · 2024Article
- Microevolutionary change in wild stickleback: Using integrative time-series data to infer responses to selection.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
79 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Darwin insisted that evolutionary change occurs very slowly over long periods of time, and this gradualist view was accepted by his supporters and incorporated into the infinitesimal model of quantitative genetics developed by R. A. Fisher and others. It dominated the first century of evolutionary biology, but has been challenged in more recent years both by field surveys demonstrating strong selection in natural populations and by quantitative trait loci and genomic studies, indicating that adaptation is often attributable to mutations in a few genes. The prevalence of strong selection seems inconsistent, however, with the high heritability often observed in natural populations, and with the claim that the amount of morphological change in contemporary and fossil lineages is independent of elapsed time. I argue that these discrepancies are resolved by realistic accounts of environmental and evolutionary changes. First, the physical and biotic environment varies on all time-scales, leading to an indefinite increase in environmental variance over time. Secondly, the intensity and direction of natural selection are also likely to fluctuate over time, leading to an indefinite increase in phenotypic variance in any given evolving lineage. Finally, detailed long-term studies of selection in natural populations demonstrate that selection often changes in direction. I conclude that the traditional gradualist scheme of weak selection acting on polygenic variation should be supplemented by the view that adaptation is often based on oligogenic variation exposed to commonplace, strong, fluctuating natural selection.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.