ArticleBMC evolutionary biology2017
Conserved patterns of integrated developmental plasticity in a group of polyphenic tropical butterflies.
Article in BMC evolutionary biology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- DNA methylation dynamics associated with seasonal wing plasticity of Bicyclus anynana butterflies.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Butterflies use humidity as a cue for wing-pattern and life history trait plasticity when temperature is unreliable.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Plasticity in climate change responses.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Genome Assembly and Annotation of the Dark-Branded Bushbrown Butterfly Mycalesis mineus (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae).Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- A Mediator subunit imparts robustness to a polyphenism decision.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- The time course of behavioural phase change in the Central American locust Schistocerca piceifrons.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Miocene Climate and Habitat Change Drove Diversification in Bicyclus, Africa's Largest Radiation of Satyrine Butterflies.Systematic biology · 2022Article
- Alternative splicing in seasonal plasticity and the potential for adaptation to environmental change.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Polyphenism of a Novel Trait Integrated Rapidly Evolving Genes into Ancestrally Plastic Networks.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Multidimensional plasticity in the Glanville fritillary butterfly: larval performance is temperature, host and family specific.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- A release from developmental bias accelerates morphological diversification in butterfly eyespots.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Article
- Does phenotypic plasticity initiate developmental bias?Evolution & development · 2020Review
- Seasonal plasticity in anti-predatory strategies: Matching of color and color preference for effective crypsis.Evolution letters · 2019Article
- Reproducible phenotype alteration due to prolonged cooling of the pupae of Polyommatus icarus butterflies.PloS one · 2019Article
- Article
- Genomics of Developmental Plasticity in Animals.Frontiers in genetics · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDevelopmental plasticity is thought to have profound macro-evolutionary effects, for example, by increasing the probability of establishment in new environments and subsequent divergence into independently evolving lineages. In contrast to plasticity optimized for individual traits, phenotypic integration, which enables a concerted response of plastic traits to environmental variability, may affect the rate of local adaptation by constraining independent responses of traits to selection. Using a comparative framework, this study explores the evolution of reaction norms for a variety of life history and morphological traits across five related species of mycalesine butterflies from the Old World tropics.
resultsOur data indicate that an integrated response of a suite of key traits is shared amongst these species. Interestingly, the traits that make up the functional suite are all known to be regulated by ecdysteroid signalling in Bicyclus anynana, one of the species included in this study, suggesting the same underlying hormonal regulator may be conserved within this group of polyphenic butterflies. We also detect developmental thresholds for the expression of alternative morphs.
conclusionsThe phenotypic plasticity of a broad suite of morphological and life history traits is integrated and shared among species from three geographically independent lineages of mycalesine butterflies, despite considerable periods of independent evolution and exposure to disparate environments. At the same time, we have detected examples of evolutionary change where independent traits show different patterns of reaction norms. We argue that the expression of more robust phenotypes may occur by shifting developmental thresholds beyond the boundaries of the typical environmental variation.
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