Meta-analysis Shows That Rapid Phenotypic Change in Angiosperms in Response to Environmental Change Is Followed by Stasis

Published in The American Naturalist. 194
Authors

Gorné, Lucas & Diaz, Sandra.
Publication year 2019
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/705680
Affiliations
  • Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina and Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal (IMBiV),
  • Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Córdoba, Argentina
IAI Program
  • Fondo para la Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (FONCyT),
  • Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET PIP 11- 220130100103),
  • Secretaría de Ciencia y Tecnología (SECyT)&ndash Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (33620180100767CB and PRIMAR Res 248/18),
  • the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI SGP-HW 090), 
  • Newton Fund. L.D.G. was supported by a CONICET and SECyT&ndashUniversidad Nacional de Córdoba postgraduate scholarship
IAI Project SGP-HW 090
Keywords
plants
phenotypic change
phenotypic evolution
contemporary evolution
haldanes
darwins
PDFMeta-analysis Shows That Rapid Phenotypic Change in Angiosperms in Response to Environmental Change Is Followed by Stasis.pdf

Abstract

The amount and rate of phenotypic change at ecological time scales varies widely, but there has not been a comprehensive quantitative synthesis of patterns and causes of such variation for plants. Present knowledge is based predominantly on animals, whose differences with plants in the origin of germ cells and the level of modularity (among others) could make it invalid for plants. We synthesized data on contemporary phenotypic responses of angiosperms to environmental change and show that if extinction does not occur, quantitative traits change quickly in the first few years following the environmental novelty and then remain stable. This general pattern is independent from lifespan, growth form, spatial scale or the type of trait. Our work shows that high amounts and rates of phenotypic change at contemporary timescales observed in plants are consistent with the pattern of stasis and bounded evolution previously observed over longer time frames. We also found evidence that may contradict some common ideas about phenotypic evolution: (1) the total amount of phenotypic change observed does not differ significantly according to growth form or lifespan, (2) greater and faster divergence tend to occur between populations connected at the local scale, where gene flow could be intense, than between distant populations, and that (3) traits closely related to fitness change as much and as fast as other traits.