ArticleScientific reports2021
Phenotypic plasticity explains apparent reverse evolution of fat synthesis in parasitic wasps.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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13 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Loss, persistence and reversal of phenotypic traits.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Article
- New Insight Into the Evolutionary Arms Race Between Spider Egg Sac Pseudoparasitoids and Active Maternal Care by the Spiders.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Lipid Metabolism in Parasitoids and Parasitized Hosts.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Chromosome-level genome assembly of Trichogramma ostriniae Pang & Chen (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae).Scientific data · 2025Article
- Bet-hedging in parasitoids: when optimization is not the best strategy to cope with climatic extremes.Current research in insect science · 2024Review
- Rapid evolution of phenotypic plasticity in patchy habitats.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Domestication effect of reduced brain size is reverted when mink become feral.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- TheEcology and evolution · 2023Review
- Many parasitoids lack adult fat accumulation, despite fatty acid synthesis: A discussion of concepts and considerations for future research.Current research in insect science · 2023Review
- Pupal size as a proxy for fat content in laboratory-reared and field-collected Drosophila species.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The biological significance of lipogenesis inProceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Parasitic wasps do not lack lipogenesis.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Numerous cases of evolutionary trait loss and regain have been reported over the years. Here, we argue that such reverse evolution can also become apparent when trait expression is plastic in response to the environment. We tested this idea for the loss and regain of fat synthesis in parasitic wasps. We first show experimentally that the wasp Leptopilina heterotoma switches lipogenesis on in a fat-poor environment, and completely off in a fat-rich environment. Plasticity suggests that this species did not regain fat synthesis, but that it can be switched off in some environmental settings. We then compared DNA sequence variation and protein domains of several more distantly related parasitoid species thought to have lost lipogenesis, and found no evidence for non-functionality of key lipogenesis genes. This suggests that other parasitoids may also show plasticity of fat synthesis. Last, we used individual-based simulations to show that a switch for plastic expression can remain functional in the genome for thousands of generations, even if it is only used sporadically. The evolution of plasticity could thus also explain other examples of apparent reverse evolution.
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