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Abstract When a population experiences severe stress from a changing environment, evolution by natural selection can prevent its extinction, a process dubbed “evolutionary rescue.” However, evolution may be unable to track the sort ofrapidenvironmental change being experienced by many modern‐day populations. A potential solution is for organisms to respond to environmental change through phenotypic plasticity, which can buffer populations against change and thereby buy time for evolutionary rescue. In this review, we examine whether this process extends to situations in which the environmentally induced response is passed to offspring. As we describe, theoretical and empirical studies suggest that such “transgenerational plasticity” can increase population persistence. We discuss the implications of this process for conservation biology, outline potential limitations, and describe some applications. Generally, transgenerational plasticity may be effective at buying time for evolutionary rescue to occur.
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Spatial storage effect facilitates evolutionary rescue in rapidly changing environments
Abstract The storage effect is a plausible natural mechanism that generates balanced genetic polymorphism in temporally varying environments. Balanced polymorphism may facilitate evolutionary rescue, promoting the persistence of populations otherwise destined for extinction. However, it is unknown whether the storage effect can be established in small populations whose size is allowed to vary, and if so, whether it will lead to evolutionary rescue. In this study, we investigate whether the spatial storage effect emerges and facilitates evolutionary rescue across small populations of variable sizes that inhabit heterogeneous, temporally varying environments and exchange migrants. We use an eco-evolutionary model to examine the phenomenon under a wide set of conditions, including the magnitudes and periods of temporal variation, habitat harshness, migration rates, the degrees of spatial heterogeneity, and increasing fitness oscillations over time, all within the framework of the logistic population growth model. We find that the storage effect emerges and that it increases the persistence of populations in harsh, temporally varying habitats beyond levels expected in the absence of the mechanism. This mechanism demonstrates how rapid evolution broadens the known conditions for population persistence in the face of rapid and continuous environmental changes.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2425290
- PAR ID:
- 10644036
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Evolution
- ISSN:
- 0014-3820
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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