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Phenotypic plasticity is often regarded as a key mechanism for coping with environmental change, yet its adaptive potential remains uncertain in part because of inconsistencies in how environmental stressors are defined and studied, and the traits that are studied. We propose a framework that partitions global change into four distinct dimensions: mean change, variability, stochasticity, and episodic events, each of which presents unique challenges for organisms. A central determinant of plasticity's adaptive value is predictability, yet existing studies inconsistently quantify it, conflating structured environmental variation with stochasticity. We introduce standardized approaches to measuring predictability and cue reliability, ensuring that plastic responses are assessed in ecologically meaningful contexts. We then present a multiple‐trait‐based framework for evaluating the likelihood of plastic trait deployment across increasing magnitudes of global change dimensions. This framework serves as a heuristic model to guide research priorities, identify key knowledge gaps, and generate testable hypotheses about the conditions under which plasticity may contribute to persistence in the face of global change. Through a case study ofDaphnia pulex, we demonstrate how the framework can be used to identify key new research approaches and identify empirical data needed to reveal and explain emergent patterns across trait types and global change conditions. By refining predictability metrics and experimental approaches, this framework advances efforts to determine when and where plasticity can buffer populations from global change, offering a foundation for future research and conservation planning. 

The impact of invasive predators during the early stages of invasion is often variable in space and time. Such variation is expected to initially favor plasticity in prey defenses, but fixed defenses as invaders become established. Coincident with the range expansion of an invasive predatory crab in the Gulf of Maine, we document rapid changes in shell thickness—a key defense against shell crushing predators—of an intertidal snail. Field experiments, conducted 20 years apart, revealed that temporal shifts in shell thickness were driven by the evolution of increased trait means and erosion of thickness plasticity. The virtual elimination of the trade-off in tissue mass that often accompanies thicker shells is consistent with the evolution of fixed defenses under increasingly certain predation risk. 

Predator-induced changes in prey foraging can influence community dynamics by increasing the abundance of basal resources via a trait-mediated trophic cascade. The strength of these cascades may be altered by eco-evolutionary relationships between predators and prey, but the role of basal resources has received limited attention. We hypothesized that trait-mediated trophic cascade strength may be shaped by selection from trophic levels above and below prey. Field and laboratory experiments used snails (Nucella lapillus) from two regions in the Gulf of Maine (GoM) that vary in basal resource availability (e.g. mussels), seawater temperature, and contact history with the invasive green crab,Carcinus maenas. In field and laboratory experiments,Nucellafrom both regions foraged on mussels in the presence or absence of green crab risk cues. In the field,Nucellafrom the northern GoM, where mussels are scarce, were less responsive to risk cues and more responsive to seawater temperature than southernNucella. In the lab, however, northernNucellaforaged and grew more than southern snails in the presence of risk, but foraging and growth were similar in the absence of risk. We suggest that adaptation to basal resource availability may shape geographical variation in the strength of trait-mediated trophic cascades. 

Abstract Invasive predators can cause substantial evolutionary change in native prey populations. Although invasions by predators typically occur over large scales, their distributions are usually characterized by substantial spatiotemporal heterogeneity that can lead to patchiness in the response of native prey species. Our ability to understand how local variation shapes patterns of inducible defense expression has thus far been limited by insufficient replication of populations within regions. Here, we examined local and regional variation in the inducible defenses of 12 native marine snail (Littorina obtusata) populations within two geographic regions in the Gulf of Maine that are characterized by vastly different contact histories with the invasive predatory green crab (Carcinus maenas). When exposed in the field to waterborne risk cues from the green crab for 90 days, snails expressed plastic increases in shell thickness that reduced their vulnerability to this shell‐crushing predator. Despite significant differences in contact history with this invasive predator, snail populations from both regions produced similar levels of shell thickness and shell thickness plasticity in response to risk cues. Such phenotypic similarity emerged even though there were substantial geographic differences in the shell thickness of juvenile snails at the beginning of the experiment, and we suggest that it may reflect the effects of warming ocean temperatures and countergradient variation. Consistent with plasticity theory, a trend in our results suggests that southern snail populations, which have a longer contact history with the green crab, paid less in the form of reduced tissue mass for thicker shells than northern populations.