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1. Plasticity’s role in adaptive evolution depends on environmental change components

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.08.008  

   Vinton, Anna C.; Gascoigne, Samuel J.L.; Sepil, Irem; Salguero-Gómez, Roberto (December 2022, Trends in Ecology & Evolution)

   Dr Andrea E. A. Stephens (Ed.)

   To forecast extinction risks of natural populations under climate change and direct human impacts, an integrative understanding of both phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution is essential. To date, the evidence for whether, when, and how much plasticity facilitates adaptive responses in changing environments is contradictory. We argue that explicitly considering three key environmental change components – rate of change, variance, and temporal autocorrelation – affords a unifying framework of the impact of plasticity on adaptive evolution. These environmental components each distinctively effect evolutionary and ecological processes underpinning population viability. Using this framework, we develop expectations regarding the interplay between plasticity and adaptive evolution in natural populations. This framework has the potential to improve predictions of population viability in a changing world. 

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2. Adaptive Phenotypic Plasticity Stabilizes Evolution in Fluctuating Environments

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.715381  

   Lalejini, Alexander; Ferguson, Austin J.; Grant, Nkrumah A.; Ofria, Charles (August 2021, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution)

   Fluctuating environmental conditions are ubiquitous in natural systems, and populations have evolved various strategies to cope with such fluctuations. The particular mechanisms that evolve profoundly influence subsequent evolutionary dynamics. One such mechanism is phenotypic plasticity, which is the ability of a single genotype to produce alternate phenotypes in an environmentally dependent context. Here, we use digital organisms (self-replicating computer programs) to investigate how adaptive phenotypic plasticity alters evolutionary dynamics and influences evolutionary outcomes in cyclically changing environments. Specifically, we examined the evolutionary histories of both plastic populations and non-plastic populations to ask: (1) Does adaptive plasticity promote or constrain evolutionary change? (2) Are plastic populations better able to evolve and then maintain novel traits? And (3), how does adaptive plasticity affect the potential for maladaptive alleles to accumulate in evolving genomes? We find that populations with adaptive phenotypic plasticity undergo less evolutionary change than non-plastic populations, which must rely on genetic variation from de novo mutations to continuously readapt to environmental fluctuations. Indeed, the non-plastic populations undergo more frequent selective sweeps and accumulate many more genetic changes. We find that the repeated selective sweeps in non-plastic populations drive the loss of beneficial traits and accumulation of maladaptive alleles, whereas phenotypic plasticity can stabilize populations against environmental fluctuations. This stabilization allows plastic populations to more easily retain novel adaptive traits than their non-plastic counterparts. In general, the evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity shifted evolutionary dynamics to be more similar to that of populations evolving in a static environment than to non-plastic populations evolving in an identical fluctuating environment. All natural environments subject populations to some form of change; our findings suggest that the stabilizing effect of phenotypic plasticity plays an important role in subsequent adaptive evolution. 

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3. When will a changing climate outpace adaptive evolution?

   https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.852  

   Martin, Ryan A.; da Silva, Carmen R. B.; Moore, Michael P.; Diamond, Sarah E. (June 2023, WIREs Climate Change)

   Abstract Decades of research have illuminated the underlying ingredients that determine the scope of evolutionary responses to climate change. The field of evolutionary biology therefore stands ready to take what it has learned about influences upon the rate of adaptive evolution—such as population demography, generation time, and standing genetic variation—and apply it to assess if and how populations can evolve fast enough to “keep pace” with climate change. Here, our review highlights what the field of evolutionary biology can contribute and what it still needs to learn to provide more mechanistic predictions of the winners and losers of climate change. We begin by developing broad predictions for contemporary evolution to climate change based on theory. We then discuss methods for assessing climate‐driven contemporary evolution, including quantitative genetic studies, experimental evolution, and space‐for‐time substitutions. After providing this mechanism‐focused overview of both the evidence for evolutionary responses to climate change and more specifically, evolving to keep pace with climate change, we next consider the factors that limit actual evolutionary responses. In this context, we consider the dual role of phenotypic plasticity in facilitating but also impeding evolutionary change. Finally, we detail how a deeper consideration of evolutionary constraints can improve forecasts of responses to climate change and therefore also inform conservation and management decisions. This article is categorized under:Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Observed Ecological ChangesClimate, Ecology, and Conservation > Extinction RiskAssessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change 

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4. Evolution of Thermal Sensitivity in Changing and Variable Climates

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-011521-102856  

   Buckley, Lauren B.; Kingsolver, Joel G. (November 2021, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics)

   Evolutionary adaptation to temperature and climate depends on both the extent to which organisms experience spatial and temporal environmental variation (exposure) and how responsive they are to the environmental variation (sensitivity). Theoretical models and experiments suggesting substantial potential for thermal adaptation have largely omitted realistic environmental variation. Environmental variation can drive fluctuations in selection that slow adaptive evolution. We review how carefully filtering environmental conditions based on how organisms experience their environment and further considering organismal sensitivity can improve predictions of thermal adaptation. We contrast taxa differing in exposure and sensitivity. Plasticity can increase the rate of evolutionary adaptation in taxa exposed to pronounced environmental variation. However, forms of plasticity that severely limit exposure, such as behavioral thermoregulation and phenological shifts, can hinder thermal adaptation. Despite examples of rapid thermal adaptation, experimental studies often reveal evolutionary constraints. Further investigating these constraints and issues of timescale and thermal history are needed to predict evolutionary adaptation and, consequently, population persistence in changing and variable environments. 

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5. Predicting the contribution of single trait evolution to rescuing a plant population from demographic impacts of climate change

   https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qraf019  

   Campbell, Diane_R; Powers, John_M; Kipness, Justin (July 2025, Evolution Letters)

   Abstract Evolutionary adaptation can allow a population to persist in the face of a new environmental challenge. With many populations now threatened by environmental change, it is important to understand whether this process of evolutionary rescue is feasible under natural conditions, yet work on this topic has been largely theoretical. We used unique long-term data to parameterize deterministic and stochastic models of the contribution of 1 trait to evolutionary rescue using field estimates for the subalpine plant Ipomopsis aggregata and hybrids with its close relative I. tenuituba. In the absence of evolution or plasticity, the 2 studied populations are projected to go locally extinct due to earlier snowmelt under climate change, which imposes drought conditions. Phenotypic selection on specific leaf area (SLA) was estimated in 12 years and multiple populations. Those data on selection and its environmental sensitivity to annual snowmelt timing in the spring were combined with previous data on heritability of the trait, phenotypic plasticity of the trait, and the impact of snowmelt timing on mean absolute fitness. Selection favored low values of SLA (thicker leaves). The evolutionary response to selection on that single trait was insufficient to allow evolutionary rescue by itself, but in combination with phenotypic plasticity it promoted evolutionary rescue in 1 of the 2 populations. The number of years until population size would stop declining and begin to rise again was heavily dependent upon stochastic environmental changes in snowmelt timing around the trend line. Our study illustrates how field estimates of quantitative genetic parameters can be used to predict the likelihood of evolutionary rescue. Although a complete set of parameter estimates are generally unavailable, it may also be possible to predict the general likelihood of evolutionary rescue based on published ranges for phenotypic selection and heritability and the extent to which early snowmelt impacts fitness. 

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