Phenotypic plasticity is predicted to evolve in more variable environments, conferring an advantage on individual lifetime fitness. It is less clear what the potential consequences of that plasticity will have on ecological population dynamics. Here, we use an invertebrate model system to examine the effects of environmental variation (resource availability) on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity in two life history traits—age and size at maturation—in long-running, experimental density-dependent environments. Specifically, we then explore the feedback from evolution of life history plasticity to subsequent ecological dynamics in novel conditions. Plasticity in both traits initially declined in all microcosm environments, but then evolved increased plasticity for age-at-maturation, significantly so in more environmentally variable environments. We also demonstrate how plasticity affects ecological dynamics by creating founder populations of different plastic phenotypes into new microcosms that had either familiar or novel environments. Populations originating from periodically variable environments that had evolved greatest plasticity had lowest variability in population size when introduced to novel environments than those from constant or random environments. This suggests that while plasticity may be costly it can confer benefits by reducing the likelihood that offspring will experience low survival through competitive bottlenecks in variable environments. In this study, we demonstrate how plasticity evolves in response to environmental variation and can alter population dynamics—demonstrating an eco-evolutionary feedback loop in a complex animal moderated by plasticity in growth.

中文翻译：

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可塑性是一种适应当地的特性，会对新环境中的生态动态产生影响

预计表型可塑性会在更多变的环境中进化，从而为个体终生健康带来优势。不太清楚这种可塑性对生态人口动态的潜在影响。在这里，我们使用无脊椎动物模型系统来检查环境变化（资源可用性）对长期运行、实验密度依赖环境中两个生活史特征（成熟时的年龄和大小）的表型可塑性进化的影响。具体来说，我们然后探索从生活史可塑性的演变到新条件下随后的生态动态的反馈。这两种性状的可塑性最初在所有微观环境中都下降，但随着成熟年龄的增长，可塑性逐渐增加，在环境变化更大的环境中尤为如此。我们还展示了可塑性如何通过将不同塑料表型的创始种群创建到具有熟悉或新环境的新缩影中来影响生态动态。来自周期性变化环境的种群与来自恒定或随机环境的那些相比，在引入新环境时，进化出最大可塑性的种群规模变化最小。这表明虽然可塑性可能代价高昂，但它可以通过降低后代在可变环境中的竞争瓶颈而经历低存活率的可能性来带来好处。在这项研究中，我们展示了可塑性如何随着环境变化而进化，并可以改变种群动态——在由生长可塑性调节的复杂动物中展示了一个生态进化反馈回路。