Exposure to agrochemicals can drive rapid phenotypic and genetic changes in exposed populations. For instance, amphibian populations living far from agriculture (a proxy for agrochemical exposure) exhibit low pesticide tolerance, but they can be induced to possess high tolerance following a sublethal pesticide exposure. In contrast, amphibian populations close to agriculture exhibit high, constitutive tolerance to pesticides. A recent study has demonstrated that induced pesticide tolerance appears to have arisen from plastic responses to predator cues. As a result, we might expect that selection for constitutive pesticide tolerance in populations near agriculture (i.e., genetic assimilation) will lead to the evolution of constitutive responses to natural stressors. Using 15 wood frog (Rana sylvatica) populations from across an agricultural gradient, we conducted an outdoor mesocosm experiment to examine morphological (mass, body length, and tail depth) and behavioral responses (number of tadpoles observed and overall activity) of tadpoles exposed to three stressor environments (no-stressor, competitors, or predator cues). We discovered widespread differences in tadpole traits among populations and stressor environments, but no population-by-environment interaction. Subsequent linear models revealed that population distance to agriculture (DTA) was occasionally correlated with tadpole traits in a given environment and with magnitudes of plasticity, but none of the correlations were significant after Bonferroni adjustment. The magnitudes of predator and competitor plasticity were never correlated with the magnitude of pesticide-induced plasticity that we documented in a companion study. These results suggest that while predator-induced plasticity appears to have laid the foundation for the evolution of pesticide-induced plasticity and its subsequent genetic assimilation, inspection of population-level differences in plastic responses show that the evolution of pesticide-induced plasticity has not had a reciprocal effect on the evolved plastic responses to natural stressors.

中文翻译：

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在进化出不同农药耐受水平的两栖动物种群中，捕食者和竞争者引起的反应

暴露于农用化学品可以推动暴露人群的快速表型和遗传变化。例如，远离农业的两栖动物种群（农药暴露的代表）表现出低农药耐受性，但在接触亚致死农药后，它们可以被诱导具有高耐受性。相比之下，接近农业的两栖动物种群对杀虫剂表现出很高的组成性耐受性。最近的一项研究表明，诱导农药耐受似乎是由塑料对捕食者线索的反应引起的。因此，我们可能期望在靠近农业的人群中选择本构农药耐受性（即遗传同化）将导致对自然压力源本构反应的进化。使用 15 林蛙 ( Rana sylvatica) 来自农业梯度的种群，我们进行了户外中观实验，以检查暴露的蝌蚪的形态（质量、体长和尾巴深度）和行为反应（观察到的蝌蚪数量和整体活动）到三个压力源环境（无压力源、竞争者或捕食者线索）。我们发现蝌蚪性状在种群和压力源环境中存在广泛差异，但没有种群与环境之间的相互作用。随后的线性模型显示，人口与农业的距离 (DTA) 偶尔与给定环境中的蝌蚪性状和可塑性程度相关，但在 Bonferroni 调整后，这些相关性均不显着。捕食者和竞争者可塑性的大小从未与我们在一项配套研究中记录的杀虫剂引起的可塑性的大小相关。这些结果表明，虽然捕食者诱导的可塑性似乎为农药诱导的可塑性进化及其随后的遗传同化奠定了基础，