When can stress facilitate divergence by altering time to flowering?

Ecology and Evolution

Crispin Y. Jordan¹  Dilara Ally¹ 

[1] Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

关键词: Assortative mating;    drought;    flowering time;    herbivory;    local adaptation;    Mimulus guttatus;    phenology;    phenotypic plasticity;    water stress;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.1821

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

Stressors and heterogeneity are ubiquitous features of natural environments, and theory suggests that when environmental qualities alter flowering schedules through phenotypic plasticity, assortative mating can result that promotes evolutionary divergence. Therefore, it is important to determine whether common ecological stressors induce similar changes in flowering time. We review previous studies to determine whether two important stressors, water restriction and herbivory, induce consistent flowering time responses among species; for example, how often do water restriction and herbivory both delay flowering? We focus on the direction of change in flowering time, which affects the potential for divergence in heterogeneous environments. We also tested whether these stressors influenced time to flowering and nonphenology traits using Mimulus guttatus. The literature review suggests that water restriction has variable effects on flowering time, whereas herbivory delays flowering with exceptional consistency. In the Mimulus experiment, low water and herbivory advanced and delayed flowering, respectively. Overall, our results temper theoretical predictions for evolutionary divergence due to habitat-induced changes in flowering time; in particular, we discuss how accounting for variation in the direction of change in flowering time can either increase or decrease the potential for divergence. In addition, we caution against adaptive interpretations of stress-induced phenology shifts.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.