10.5061/DRYAD.VDNCJSXT4
De Lisle, Stephen
0000-0001-9587-8665
Lund University
Mäenpää, Maarit
Stockholm University
Svensson, Erik
Lund University
Phenotypic plasticity is aligned with phenological adaptation on micro-
and macroevolutionary timescales
Dryad
dataset
2021
2022-01-21T00:00:00Z
2022-01-21T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.26.428241
86608473 bytes
6
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
In seasonally-variable environments, phenotypic plasticity in phenology
may be critical for adaptation to fluctuating environmental
conditions. Using an 18-generation longitudinal dataset from natural
damselfly populations, we show that phenology has strongly advanced.
Individual fitness data suggest this is likely an adaptive response
towards a temperature-dependent optimum. A laboratory experiment revealed
that developmental plasticity qualitatively matches the
temperature-dependence of selection, partially explaining
observed advance in phenology. Expanding our analysis to the
macroevolutionary level, we use a database of over 1-million occurrence
records and spatiotemporally-matched temperature data from 49 Swedish
Odonate species to infer macroevolutionary dynamics of
phenology. Phenological plasticity was more closely aligned with
adaptation for species that have recently colonized northern latitudes,
but with higher phenological mismatch at lower latitudes. Our results show
that phenological plasticity plays a key role in microevolutionary
dynamics within a single species, and such plasticity may have facilitated
post-Pleistocene range expansion in this insect clade.