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The evolution of plasticity in brain morphology following colonization of an ecologically divergent habitat in Trinidadian guppies

Natural environments are constantly changing. To survive, organisms will either need to rapidly adapt to new conditions or colonize new habitats. Colonization has been hypothesized to select for increased plasticity as well as increased brain size, though empirical tests of these effects have proven difficult to evaluate. In particular, the degree to which plasticity of brain morphology can evolve, and its subsequent ecological consequences have rarely been explored. Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are known for their repeated adaptation to ancestral high-predation (HP) and derived low-predation (LP) environments. We used this system to examine the evolution and plasticity of brain morphology. We exposed second-generation offspring of individuals collected from HP and LP sites to two different kinds of environmental treatments: predation cues and conspecific social environment. We found that guppies descended from a colonized LP habitat showed greater plasticity in brain morphology than descendants of their ancestral HP population, supporting the hypothesis that plasticity of brain morphology may increase fitness after colonization of a novel habitat. Additionally, we show sexual dimorphism in brain morphology plasticity. Overall, these results suggest the evolution of brain morphology plasticity as an important mechanism that allows for ecological diversification and colonization of novel habitats.

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2024View details →

Chemical composition of main agricultural plastics articles used for protected cultivation systems: additive characterization

The folder includes chromatographic and mass spectrometry data of the characterization of additives in agricultural plastics, including mulch films (coded as M), mulch fabrics (coded as C and GT), ropes (coded as R), irrigation tapes (coded as I), seed coatings (coded as O), feed sack (coded as K), bale knitted nets and silage nets (coded as S4), biodegradable shelters (coded as SH), ropes & twines for crop production (coded as R), plant tunnels (coded as L), fertilizers sacks (coded as K), silage film /coded as S1). Conventional polymers including polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and biodegradable polymers (BIO) have been analyzed.

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2024View details →

The 1930s Plastic Revolution

Despite the Great Depression, the 1930s could be called the Tremendous Thirties due to the many modern technologies introduced during the decade. One set of remarkable inventions introduced during the decade came from a family of manmade synthetic polymers developed by America’s largest chemical companies.

Data from: Sensory perception of rivals has trait-dependent effects on plasticity in Drosophila melanogaster

The social environment has myriad effects on individuals, altering reproduction, immune function, cognition, and aging. Phenotypic plasticity enables animals to respond to heterogeneous environments such as the social environment but requires that they assess those environments accurately. It has been suggested that combinations of sensory cues allow animals to respond rapidly and accurately to changeable environments, but it is unclear whether the same sensory inputs are required in all traits that respond to a particular environmental cue. Drosophila melanogaster males, in the presence of rival males, exhibit a consistent behavioral response by extending mating duration. However, exposure to a rival also results in a reduction in their lifespan, a phenomenon interpreted as a trade-off associated with sperm competition strategies. D. melanogaster perceive their rivals by using multiple sensory cues; interfering with at least two of olfactory, auditory, or tactile cues eliminates the extension of mating duration. Here we assessed whether these same cues were implicated in the lifespan reduction. Removal of combinations of auditory and olfactory cues removed the extended mating duration response to a rival, as previously found. However, we found that these manipulations did not alter the reduction in lifespan of males exposed to rivals or induce any changes in activity patterns, grooming or male-male aggression. Therefore, our analysis suggests that lifespan reduction is not a cost associated with the behavioral responses to sperm competition. Moreover, this highlights the trait-specific nature of the mechanisms underlying plasticity in response to the same environmental conditions.

Phenotypic plasticity in tropical butterflies is linked to climatic seasonality on a macroevolutionary scale

Phenotypic plasticity can be adaptive in fluctuating environments by providing rapid environment-phenotype matching and this applies particularly in seasonal environments. African Bicyclus butterflies have repeatedly colonized seasonal savannahs from ancestral forests around the Late Miocene and many species now exhibit seasonal polyphenism. On a macroevolutionary scale, it can be expected that savannah species will exhibit higher plasticity due to them experiencing stronger environmental seasonality than forest species. We quantified seasonality using environmental niche modelling, and surveyed the degree of plasticity in a key wing pattern element (eyespot size) using museum specimens. We show that species occurring in highly seasonal environments display strong plasticity, while species in less seasonal or aseasonal environments exhibit surprisingly variable degrees of plasticity, including strong to no plasticity. Furthermore, eyespot size plasticity has a moderate phylogenetic signal and the ancestral Bicyclus likely exhibited some degree of plasticity. We propose hypotheses to explain the range of plasticity patterns seen in less seasonal environments, and generate testable predictions for the evolution of plasticity in Bicyclus. Our study provides one of the most compelling cases showing links between seasonality and phenotypic plasticity on a macroevolutionary scale and the potential role of plasticity in facilitating the colonization of novel environments.

Data for: Plastic vasomotion entrainment in eLife

The presence of global synchronization of vasomotion induced by oscillating visual stimuli was identified in the mouse brain. Endogenous autofluorescence was used and the vessel "shadow" was quantified to evaluate the magnitude of the frequency-locked vasomotion. This method allows vasomotion to be easily quantified in non-transgenic wild-type mice using either the wide-field macro-zoom microscopy or the deep-brain fiber photometry methods. Vertical stripes horizontally oscillating at a low temporal frequency (0.25 Hz) were presented to the awake mouse and oscillatory vasomotion locked to the temporal frequency of the visual stimulation was induced not only in the primary visual cortex but across a wide surface area of the cortex and the cerebellum. The visually induced vasomotion adapted to a wide range of stimulation parameters. Repeated trials of the visual stimulus presentations resulted in the entrainment of the amplitude of the vasomotion. Horizontally oscillating visual stimulus is known to induce horizontal optokinetic response (HOKR). The amplitude of the eye movement is known to increase with repeated training sessions and the flocculus region of the cerebellum is known to be essential for this learning to occur. Here, we show a strong correlation between the average HOKR performance gain and the vasomotion entrainment magnitude in the cerebellar flocculus. Therefore, the plasticity of vasomotion and neuronal circuits appeared to occur in parallel. Efficient energy delivery by the entrained vasomotion may contribute to meeting the energy demand for increased coordinated neuronal activity and the subsequent neuronal circuit reorganization.

Data from: Phenotypic plasticity and the effects of thermal fluctuations on specialists and generalists

Classical theories predict that relatively constant environments should generally favor specialists, while fluctuating environments should select for generalists. However, theoretical and empirical results have pointed out that generalist organisms might on the contrary perform poorly under fluctuations. In particular, if generalism is underlaid by phenotypic plasticity, performance of generalists should be modulated by the temporal characteristics of environmental fluctuations. Here, we used experiments in microcosms and a mathematical model to test whether the period or autocorrelation of thermal fluctuations mediate links between the level of generalism and the performance of organisms under fluctuations. In the experiment, thermal fluctuations consistently impeded performance compared to constant conditions. However, the intensity of this effect depended on the level of generalism: while the more specialists strains performed better under fast or negatively autocorrelated fluctuations, plastic generalists performed better under slow or positively autocorrelated fluctuations. Our model suggests that these effects of fluctuations on organisms' performance may result from a time delay in the expression of plasticity, restricting its benefits to slow-enough fluctuations. This study points out the need to further investigate the temporal dynamics of phenotypic plasticity to better predict its fitness consequences under environmental fluctuations.

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2024View details →

Plastic additive content in earthworms

The dataset is related to the plastic additive content of earthworms. The results are described in an under review manunscript  "Effects of conventional and biodegradable microplastics on earthworm Eisenia andrei in two generations".

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2024View details →

Data for "Diel Variability and Decoupled pH-Oxygen Dynamics Drive Metabolic Plasticity in Kelp Crabs from an Upwelling Seascape".

Data for “Diel Variability and Decoupled pH-Oxygen Dynamics Drive Metabolic Plasticity in Kelp Crabs from an Upwelling Seascape”. By Vargas, C.A. et al.   Two files: Readme.txt Diel cycle Taliepus upwelling dataset.xlsx   -Sheet “Upwelling index” Time-series of “u” and “v” component of the wind, and calculated upwelling index (UI) for two coastal sites in Arauco Gulf, an upwelling shadow (US) area, and an active upwelling (AU) area. Dataset used in Figure 1A. -Sheet “Time series”. Time-series data of seawater temperature (T), dissolved oxygen (DO), and pH for an upwelling shadow (US) area, and an active upwelling (AU) area. T in ºC, DO in mg L-1, and pH units. Dataset used in Figure 1D, E, Figure 2A, B, C, and Figure 3A, B, C, D. -Sheet “O2 consumption and C production”. Results data for oxygen consumption (umol O2 g-1 h-1), carbon production (umol C g-1 h-1), and respiratory quotient (RQ) during incubations. Datast used in Figure 5A, B, C, D, E, F. -Sheet “Glucose and lactate content”. Results data for hemolymph pH, glucose and lactate content (mg mg-tissue-1) in Taliepus dentatus muscle during incubations. Datast used in Figure 6A, B, C, D, E, F. All date and time (Date_Time) data format (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss)

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2023View details →

Plasticizer Content by TGA datasets - Comparative TGA curves for samples before and after SE.

Datasets obtained for the Plasticizer Content by TGA analysis, from the paper "An Integrated Characterization Strategy on Board for Recycling of poly(vinyl butyral) (PVB) from Laminated Glass Wastes"

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2024View details →

Plasticizer Content by TGA datasets - Mass loss curves of PVB grades and derivative TGA curves

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2023View details →

Plasticizer Content by TGA - Isothermal TGA runs at 250 °C and dynamic TGA runs on the residue of isothermal runs.

opencc-zeroOct 2021View details →

Data from: Axes of multivariate sexual signal divergence among incipient species: concordance with selection, genetic variation, and phenotypic plasticity

Sexual signaling traits are often observed to diverge rapidly among populations, thereby playing a potentially key early role in the evolution of reproductive isolation. While often assumed to reflect divergent sexual selection among populations, patterns of sexual trait diversification might sometimes be biased along axes of standing additive genetic variation and covariation among trait components. Additionally, theory predicts that environmentally-induced phenotypic variation might facilitate rapid trait evolution, suggesting that patterns of divergence between populations should mirror phenotypic plasticity within populations. Here we evaluate the concordance between observed axes of multivariate sexual trait divergence and predicted divergence based on (1) interpopulation variation in sexual selection, (2) additive genetic variances, and (3) temperature-related phenotypic plasticity in male courtship song among geographically isolated populations of the Hawaiian swordtail cricket, Laupala cerasina, which exhibit sexual isolation due sexual signaling traits. The major axis of multivariate divergence, dmax, accounted for 76% of variation among population male song trait means, and was moderately correlated with interpopulation differences in directional sexual selection based on female preferences. However, the majority of additive genetic variance was largely oriented away from the direction of divergence, suggesting that standing genetic variation may not play a dominant role in the patterning of signal divergence. In contrast, the axis of phenotypic plasticity strongly mirrored patterns of interpopulation phenotypic divergence, which is consistent with a role for temperature-related plasticity in facilitating instead of inhibiting male song evolution and sexual isolation in these incipient species. We propose potential mechanisms by which sexual selection might interact with phenotypic plasticity to facilitate the rapid acoustic diversification observed in this species and clade.

opencc-zeroNov 2021View details →

Structural plasticity of olfactory neuropils in relation to insect diapause

1. Many insects that live in temperate zones spend the cold season in a state of dormancy, referred to as diapause. As the insect must rely on resources that were gathered before entering diapause, keeping a low metabolic rate is of utmost importance. Organs that are metabolically expensive to maintain, such as the brain, can therefore become a liability to survival if they are too large. 2. Insects that go through diapause as adults generally do so before entering the season of reproduction. This order of events introduces a conflict between maintaining low metabolism during dormancy, and emerging afterwards with highly developed sensory systems that improve fitness during the mating season. 3. We investigated the timing of when investments into the olfactory system are made by measuring the volumes of primary and secondary olfactory neuropils in the brain as they fluctuate in size throughout the extended diapause life-period of adult Polygonia c-album butterflies. 4. Relative volumes of both olfactory neuropils increase significantly during early adult development, indicating the importance of olfaction to this species, but still remain considerably smaller than those of non-diapausing conspecifics. However, despite butterflies being kept under the same conditions as before the dormancy, their olfactory neuropil volumes decreased significantly during the post-dormancy period. 5. The opposing directions of change in relative neuropil volumes before and after diapause dormancy indicate that the investment strategies governing structural plasticity during the two life-stages could be functionally distinct. As butterflies were kept in stimulus-poor conditions, we find it likely that investments into these brain regions rely on experience-expectant processes before diapause and experience-dependent processes after diapause conditions are broken. 6. As the shift in investment strategies coincide with a hard shift from pre-mating season to mating season, we argue that these developmental characteristics could be adaptations that mitigate the trade-off between dormancy survival and reproductive fitness.

Age-dependent timing and routes demonstrate developmental plasticity in a long-distance migratory bird

1. Longitudinal tracking studies have revealed consistent differences in the migration patterns of individuals from the same populations. The sources or processes causing this individual variation are largely unresolved. As a result, it is mostly unknown how much, how fast, and when animals can adjust their migrations to changing environments. 2. We studied the ontogeny of migration in a long-distance migratory shorebird, the black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa limosa), a species known to exhibit marked individuality in the migratory routines of adults. By observing how and when these individual differences arise, we aimed to elucidate whether individual differences in migratory behaviour are inherited or emerge as a result of developmental plasticity. 3. We simultaneously tracked juvenile and adult godwits from the same breeding area on their south- and northward migrations. To determine how and when individual differences begin to arise, we related juvenile migration routes, timing, and mortality rates to hatch date and year of birth. Then, we compared adult and juvenile migration patterns to identify potential age-dependent differences. 4. In juveniles, the timing of their first southward departure was related to hatch date. However, their subsequent migration routes, orientation, destination, migratory duration, and likelihood of mortality were unrelated to the year or timing of migration, or their sex. Juveniles left the Netherlands after all tracked adults. They then flew non-stop to West Africa more often and incurred higher mortality rates than adults. Some juveniles also took routes and visited stopover sites far outside the well-documented adult migratory corridor. Such juveniles, however, were not more likely to die. 5. We found that juveniles exhibited different migratory patterns than adults, but no evidence that these behaviours are under natural selection. We thus eliminate the possibility that the individual differences observed among adult godwits are present at birth or during their first migration. This adds to the mounting evidence that animals possess the developmental plasticity to change their migration later in life in response to environmental conditions as those conditions are experienced.

Models of evolutionary rescue with plasticity and nonlinear environmental change: code and data

Rapid environmental changes are putting numerous species at risk of extinction. For migration-limited species, persistence depends on either phenotypic plasticity or evolutionary adaptation (evolutionary rescue). Current theory on evolutionary rescue typically assumes linear environmental change. Yet accelerating environmental change may pose a bigger threat. Here we present the simulation code and data from a model of a species encountering an environment with accelerating or decelerating change, to which it can adapt through evolution or phenotypic plasticity (within-generational or transgenerational). We show that unless either form of plasticity is sufficiently strong or adaptive genetic variation is sufficiently plentiful, accelerating or decelerating environmental change increases extinction risk compared to linear environmental change for the same mean rate of environmental change.

Comparative analysis of phenotypic plasticity sheds light on the evolution and molecular underpinnings of locust phase polyphenism

Locusts exhibit one of nature's most spectacular examples of complex phenotypic plasticity, in which changes in density cause solitary and cryptic individuals to transform into gregarious and conspicuous locusts forming large migrating swarms. We investigated how these coordinated alternative phenotypes might have evolved by studying the Central American locust and three closely related non-swarming grasshoppers in a comparative framework. By experimentally isolating and crowding during nymphal development, we induced density-dependent phenotypic plasticity and quantified the resulting behavioural, morphological, and molecular reaction norms. All four species exhibited clear plasticity, but the individual reaction norms varied among species and showed different magnitudes. Transcriptomic responses were species-specific, but density-responsive genes were functionally similar across species. There were modules of co-expressed genes that were highly correlated with plastic reaction norms, revealing a potential molecular basis of density-dependent phenotypic plasticity. These findings collectively highlight the importance of studying multiple reaction norms from a comparative perspective.

Physiological and environmental data from: Are you ready for the heat? Plasticity vs adaptation of heat tolerance in three-spined stickleback

Heat waves constitute a challenge for aquatic ectotherms. However, the thermal tolerance of animals and their individual phenotypic plasticity to respond to heat waves may be influenced by thermal history. We tested these hypotheses by comparing the upper thermal tolerance and the individual capacities of three-spined sticklebacks from populations with different thermal histories to respond to heat waves. Two populations originated from thermally polluted nuclear power plant (NPP) habitats, while four locations represented geographically adjacent control areas. To disentangle the genetic adaptation from the phenotypic plastic response, we measured the individual upper thermal tolerance and the responses at molecular level in common garden conditions before and after a laboratory-mimicked heat wave. We found that the sticklebacks exhibit considerable phenotypic plasticity in thermal tolerance since the heat wave increased fish upper thermal tolerance significantly. The individual plasticity to respond to the heat wave was also negatively correlated to initial thermal tolerance. On the other hand, neither the thermal tolerance nor the plastic responses differed between NPP and control sites despite detection of significant but low genome-wide divergence in 10 out of 15 pairwise comparisons. Our results suggest that five decades of nuclear power plant activity with warmer water has not resulted in a detectable evolutionary change in either the upper thermal tolerance or its plasticity in three-spined sticklebacks potentially rendering them sensitive to frequent heat waves.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2021View details →

Self-Limiting Earthquake Dynamics and Spatio-Temporal Clustering of Seismicity Enabled by Off-Fault Plasticity

Earthquakes are among nature’s deadliest and costliest hazards. Physics-based simulations are essential for overcoming the lack of data and elucidating the complex patterns of earthquakes. Enabled by a novel numerical scheme, this work discovers a new mechanism for regulating earthquake dynamics that emerges due to the co-evolution of fault slip and fault zone plasticity. It enables transition from periodic events to fully irregular sequences of earthquakes. The impact of plasticity on earthquake source characteristics goes beyond its limited contribution to the overall energy budget, emphasized in earlier studies, to underscore its crucial role on the redistribution of stresses that self-limits earthquake growth and leads to clustering of seismicity. This work highlights the need for characterizing the fault zone mechanical response beyond their elastic properties to better inform seismic hazard models.

Mimulus cardinalis plasticity analyses and R scripts for: Spatial variation in high temperature-regulated gene expression predicts evolution of plasticity with climate change in the scarlet monkeyflower

A major way that organisms can adapt to changing environmental conditions is by evolving increased or decreased phenotypic plasticity. In the face of current global warming, more attention is being paid to the role of plasticity in maintaining fitness as abiotic conditions change over time. However, given that temporal data can be challenging to acquire, a major question is whether evolution in plasticity across space can predict adaptive plasticity across time. In growth chambers simulating two thermal regimes, we generated transcriptome data for western North American scarlet monkeyflowers (Mimulus cardinalis) collected from different latitudes and years (2010 and 2017) to test hypotheses about how plasticity in gene expression is responding to increases in temperature, and if this pattern is consistent across time and space. Supporting the genetic compensation hypothesis, individuals whose progenitors were collected from the warmer-origin northern 2017 descendant cohort showed lower thermal plasticity in gene expression than their cooler-origin northern 2010 ancestors. This was largely due to a change in response at the warmer (40ºC) rather than cooler (20ºC) treatment. A similar pattern of reduced plasticity, largely due to a change in response at 40ºC, was also found for the cooler-origin northern versus the warmer-origin southern population from 2017. Our results demonstrate that reduced phenotypic plasticity can evolve with warming and that spatial and temporal changes in plasticity predict one another.