ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
Plasticity-led evolution: evaluating the key prediction of frequency-dependent adaptation.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. 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.
- Plasticity-first evolution via CYP405 loss shaped chemical defenses in butterflies.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Uniqueness and predictability in evolution and the history of mollusks.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Genetic and Environmental Factors Shape Rates of Plasticity: The Temporal Dynamics of Opsin Gene Expression in Aquatic Environments.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- The Evolution of Gene Expression Plasticity During Adaptation to Salt in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- A modelling framework for cancer ecology and evolution.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Article
- Plasticity and associated epigenetic mechanisms play a role in thermal evolution during range expansion.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Molecular basis of phenotypic plasticity in a marine ciliate.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Computational modelling of plasticity-led evolution.Biophysical reviews · 2022Review
- Disentangling the developmental origins of a novel phenotype: enhancement versus reversal of environmentally induced gene expression.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Evolved reductions in body temperature and the metabolic costs of thermoregulation in deer mice native to high altitude.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Molecular mechanisms underlying leaf development, morphological diversification, and beyond.The Plant cell · 2022Review
- The evolution of targeted cannibalism and cannibal-induced defenses in invasive populations of cane toads.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Comparative analysis of phenotypic plasticity sheds light on the evolution and molecular underpinnings of locust phase polyphenism.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Natural selection mediated by seasonal time constraints increases the alignment between evolvability and developmental plasticity.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2021Article
- Review
- Plasticity-led evolution: evaluating the key prediction of frequency-dependent adaptation.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Genomics of Developmental Plasticity in Animals.Frontiers in genetics · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Plasticity-led evolution occurs when a change in the environment triggers a change in phenotype via phenotypic plasticity, and this pre-existing plasticity is subsequently refined by selection into an adaptive phenotype. A critical, but largely untested prediction of plasticity-led evolution (and evolution by natural selection generally) is that the rate and magnitude of evolutionary change should be positively associated with a phenotype's frequency of expression in a population. Essentially, the more often a phenotype is expressed and exposed to selection, the greater its opportunity for adaptive refinement. We tested this prediction by competing against each other spadefoot toad tadpoles from different natural populations that vary in how frequently they express a novel, environmentally induced carnivore ecomorph. As expected, laboratory-reared tadpoles whose parents were derived from populations that express the carnivore ecomorph more frequently were superior competitors for the resource for which this ecomorph is specialized-fairy shrimp. These tadpoles were better at using this resource both because they were more efficient at capturing and consuming shrimp and because they produced more exaggerated carnivore traits. Moreover, they exhibited these more carnivore-like features even without experiencing the inducing cue, suggesting that this ecomorph has undergone an extreme form of plasticity-led evolution-genetic assimilation. Thus, our findings provide evidence that the frequency of trait expression drives the magnitude of adaptive refinement, thereby validating a key prediction of plasticity-led evolution specifically and adaptive evolution generally.
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