Sonia E. Sultan
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199587070
- eISBN:
- 9780191814013
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587070.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology, Developmental Biology
The biologically intimate, causally reciprocal relationship between organisms and their environments shapes individual adaptation, ecological communities, and selective evolution. The book ...
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The biologically intimate, causally reciprocal relationship between organisms and their environments shapes individual adaptation, ecological communities, and selective evolution. The book synthesizes a wealth of new research findings to examine how environments influence phenotypic expression in individual organisms (ecological development or eco-devo) and how organisms in turn alter their environments (niche construction). A key argument is that ecological interactions as well as natural selection are shaped by these organism–environment effects. The book begins with a chapter on development, examining the regulatory roles of epigenetic and environmental factors to support a unified eco-devo approach based on the norm of reaction. Next, the foundational concepts of ecological niche and adaptation are reconsidered to build a framework for studying the organism–environment relationship. The third chapter provides an overview of environmental cues and regulatory mechanisms that lead to plastic eco-devo responses, presenting detailed case studies. Subsequent chapters explore how such phenotypic responses modify the environmental conditions that individual organisms experience, and how microorganisms, plants, and animals modify their external environments. Community-level consequences of both organismic effects on the environment and individual eco-devo responses (trait-mediated interactions) are then examined. In the final chapter, natural selection is discussed in light of organism–environment effects, including the environmental dependence of gene expression and genetic variance; epigenetic and cytoplasmically inherited environmental factors; and effects of organisms on their selective environments (eco-evolutionary feedbacks). A short epilogue proposes that focusing on the organism–environment relationship can lead to novel testable hypotheses, practical solutions, and insights into future adaptation.Less
The biologically intimate, causally reciprocal relationship between organisms and their environments shapes individual adaptation, ecological communities, and selective evolution. The book synthesizes a wealth of new research findings to examine how environments influence phenotypic expression in individual organisms (ecological development or eco-devo) and how organisms in turn alter their environments (niche construction). A key argument is that ecological interactions as well as natural selection are shaped by these organism–environment effects. The book begins with a chapter on development, examining the regulatory roles of epigenetic and environmental factors to support a unified eco-devo approach based on the norm of reaction. Next, the foundational concepts of ecological niche and adaptation are reconsidered to build a framework for studying the organism–environment relationship. The third chapter provides an overview of environmental cues and regulatory mechanisms that lead to plastic eco-devo responses, presenting detailed case studies. Subsequent chapters explore how such phenotypic responses modify the environmental conditions that individual organisms experience, and how microorganisms, plants, and animals modify their external environments. Community-level consequences of both organismic effects on the environment and individual eco-devo responses (trait-mediated interactions) are then examined. In the final chapter, natural selection is discussed in light of organism–environment effects, including the environmental dependence of gene expression and genetic variance; epigenetic and cytoplasmically inherited environmental factors; and effects of organisms on their selective environments (eco-evolutionary feedbacks). A short epilogue proposes that focusing on the organism–environment relationship can lead to novel testable hypotheses, practical solutions, and insights into future adaptation.
Sonia E. Sultan
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199587070
- eISBN:
- 9780191814013
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587070.003.0004
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology, Developmental Biology
Individual plasticity can be seen as a type of niche construction, because it alters how the organism experiences a given set of external conditions. This chapter examines how, by means of plastic ...
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Individual plasticity can be seen as a type of niche construction, because it alters how the organism experiences a given set of external conditions. This chapter examines how, by means of plastic trait adjustments, individual organisms modify and enhance the environments that they experience. It begins with the simplest case, spatial and temporal relocation (habitat choice). The next section discusses how animals and plants modify the temperature conditions they experience through positional, behavioral, metabolic, and morphological plasticity. An extensive section then examines plastic responses that mediate experienced resource environments, including microbial responses to transient nutrient plumes, targeted proliferation of plant root systems, whole-plant, leaf, chloroplast, and ultrastructural responses that maximize light availability, developmental plasticity of plants and animals to maintain oxygen supply, and plasticity in structural traits related to food acquisition and processing. The final section discusses plastic responses by parent animals and plants that enhance the environments experienced by their offspring.Less
Individual plasticity can be seen as a type of niche construction, because it alters how the organism experiences a given set of external conditions. This chapter examines how, by means of plastic trait adjustments, individual organisms modify and enhance the environments that they experience. It begins with the simplest case, spatial and temporal relocation (habitat choice). The next section discusses how animals and plants modify the temperature conditions they experience through positional, behavioral, metabolic, and morphological plasticity. An extensive section then examines plastic responses that mediate experienced resource environments, including microbial responses to transient nutrient plumes, targeted proliferation of plant root systems, whole-plant, leaf, chloroplast, and ultrastructural responses that maximize light availability, developmental plasticity of plants and animals to maintain oxygen supply, and plasticity in structural traits related to food acquisition and processing. The final section discusses plastic responses by parent animals and plants that enhance the environments experienced by their offspring.
Dustin Marshall, Justin McAlister, and Adam Reitzel (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198786962
- eISBN:
- 9780191829086
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198786962.003.0003
- Subject:
- Biology, Aquatic Biology, Ecology
Marine larvae vary enormously in the amount of care (be it in the form of energy or other costly caregiving that increases offspring fitness) they receive from their parents. In contrast to ...
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Marine larvae vary enormously in the amount of care (be it in the form of energy or other costly caregiving that increases offspring fitness) they receive from their parents. In contrast to terrestrial taxa, parental investment is less coupled to phylogeny in marine taxa, such that closely related species may have wildly different parental investment strategies. Such diversity demands explanation, and marine biologists have been fascinated by variation in parental investment for over 100 years. In this chapter, we review patterns in parental investment in space, review the theory of parental investment in life history theory, explore the key assumptions of life history theory as it pertains to parental investment, and then examine the evolutionary causes and ecological consequences of variation in parental investment for marine organisms.Less
Marine larvae vary enormously in the amount of care (be it in the form of energy or other costly caregiving that increases offspring fitness) they receive from their parents. In contrast to terrestrial taxa, parental investment is less coupled to phylogeny in marine taxa, such that closely related species may have wildly different parental investment strategies. Such diversity demands explanation, and marine biologists have been fascinated by variation in parental investment for over 100 years. In this chapter, we review patterns in parental investment in space, review the theory of parental investment in life history theory, explore the key assumptions of life history theory as it pertains to parental investment, and then examine the evolutionary causes and ecological consequences of variation in parental investment for marine organisms.
