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opencc-by-4.0Mar 2022View details →

An uncommon garden experiment: microenvironment has stronger influence on phenotypic variation than epigenetic memory in the clonal Lombardy poplar

Phenotypic and bioclimatic data for manuscript "An uncommon garden experiment: microenvironment has stronger influence on phenotypic variation than epigenetic memory in the clonal Lombardy poplar"

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Evolutionary divergence in phenotypic plasticity shapes brain size variation between coexisting sunfish ecotypes

Mechanisms that generate brain size variation and the consequences of such variation on ecological performance are poorly understood in most natural animal populations. We use a reciprocal-transplant common garden experiment and foraging performance trials to test for brain size plasticity and the functional consequences of brain size variation in Pumpkinseed sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus) ecotypes that have diverged between nearshore littoral and offshore pelagic lake habitats. Different age-classes of wild-caught juveniles from both habitats were exposed for six months to treatments that mimicked littoral and pelagic foraging. Plastic responses in oral jaw size suggested that treatments mimicked natural habitat-specific foraging conditions. Plastic brain size responses to foraging manipulations differed between ecotypes, as only pelagic sourced fish showed brain size plasticity. Only pelagic juveniles under 1 year-old expressed this plastic response, suggesting that plastic brain size responses decline with age and so may be irreversible. Finally, larger brain size was associated with enhanced foraging performance on live benthic but not pelagic prey, providing the first experimental evidence of a relationship between brain size and prey-specific foraging performance in fishes. The recent post-glacial origin of these ecotypes suggests that brain size plasticity can rapidly evolve and diverge in fish under contrasting ecological conditions.

opencc-zeroAug 2022View details →

Sexually mediated phenotypic variation within and between sexes as a continuum structured by ecology: The mosaic nature of skeletal variation across body regions in Threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.)

Ecological character displacement between the sexes, and sexual selection, integrate into a convergent set of factors that produce sexual variation. Ecologically-modulated, sexually mediated variation within and between sexes may be a major contributor to the amount of total variation that selection can act on in species. Threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) display rapid adaptive responses and sexual variation in many phenotypic traits. We examined phenotypic variation in the skull, pectoral and pelvic girdles of threespine stickleback from two freshwater and two coastal marine sites on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada, using an approach that avoids a priori assumptions about bimodal patterns of variation. We quantified shape and size of the cranial, pectoral and pelvic regions of sticklebacks in marine and freshwater habitats using 3D geometric morphometrics and an index of sexually mediated variation. We show that the expression of phenotypic variation is structured in part by the effects of both habitat marine vs freshwater and the effects of individual sites within each habitat. Relative size exerts variable influence, and patterns of phenotypic variation associated with sex vary among body regions. This fine-grained quantification of sexually mediated variation in the context of habitat difference and different anatomical structures indicates a complex relationship between genetically inferred sex and environmental factors, demonstrating that the interplay between shared genetic background and sexually mediated, ecologically-based selective pressures structures the phenotypic expression of complex traits.

opencc-zeroMay 2024View details →

Data for: Phenotypic variation of hydraulic traits for woody species

Hydraulic traits are major determinants of plant fitness, thus exerting control over vegetation structure, function and distribution. Yet it remains unclear whether and how hydraulic traits respond to environmental stimuli (i.e., phenotypic variation of hydraulic traits; PVHT), and if the coordination between different hydraulic traits and the trait-climate relationship are affected by PVHT. Here, we synthesized data of PVHT (maximum hydraulic conductivity and water potential inducing 50% loss of hydraulic conductivity) as well as potentially related morphological and anatomical traits (e.g. sapwood density, branch Huber value, mean and hydraulic weighted conduit diameter). We analyzed the magnitude, direction and source of variation of the plastic response, as well as the influence of environmental factors on trait coordination. Additionally, we compared the intra- and inter- specific variation between key hydraulic traits and climate metrics (mean annual precipitation and mean annual temperature) at the site of growth, as well as across the population range. PVHT was highly variable in both magnitude and direction, which was contingent on the environmental factor. The variation in PVHT mainly occurred at high taxonomic levels (i.e., family and genus), whereas phenology explained little variation for PVHT. Despite the high variability, trait correlation remained robust in the presence of environmental stimuli. Moreover, trait-climate relationships differed at inter-specific and intra-specific levels. The intra-specific variation of hydraulic traits in most species showed no correlation with climate metrics compared with the high correlation of hydraulic traits with climate metrics across species. Our findings suggest that the high variability of PVHT does not affect the trait correlation which may be valuable in predicting vegetation dynamics under varying environments. The distinct trait-climate relationships highlight the need to unravel the driving force of PVHT, as well as the adaptive strategy across populations.

opennotspecifiedSep 2021View details →

FIG. 4 in Phenotypic Variation in Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis (Mitchill) at Broad Spatial Scales Makes Morphology an Insufficient Basis for Taxonomic Reclassification of the Species

FIG. 4. The number of vertebrae (A) and basihyal teeth (B) reported by Stauffer (2020) for Cosby (CS; yellow), Indian Camp (ICC; blue), and Greenbrier (GB; green) Creeks. Vertebrae counts from peer-reviewed literature are also shown (see the supplement for sources), and, where appropriate, mean (triangle), mode (circle), and/or range (line) are indicated. The dashed line in panel B reflects values that were reported for basihyal tooth count from Cosby Creek in Stauffer (2020) but which were inconsistent with the requested data.

opennotspecifiedSep 2021View details →

FIG. 1 in Phenotypic Variation in Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis (Mitchill) at Broad Spatial Scales Makes Morphology an Insufficient Basis for Taxonomic Reclassification of the Species

FIG. 1. Native distribution of Brook Trout (shaded gray area) in the United States and Canada, with Brook Trout used in our comparative analyses originating from survey locations located in panels A and B. The three streams in Long Island, NY, surveyed by Stauffer and King (2014) are shown in panel A. Panel B shows streams from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) surveyed by Weathers et al. (2019; circles) and Stauffer (2020; diamonds), with the three streams included in both studies symbolized with matching colors (Cosby Creek: yellow; Greenbrier Creek: green; Indian Camp Creek: blue). Streams included in Weathers et al. (2019) but not included in Stauffer (2020) are shown in gray circles.

opennotspecifiedSep 2021View details →

FIG. 2 in Phenotypic Variation in Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis (Mitchill) at Broad Spatial Scales Makes Morphology an Insufficient Basis for Taxonomic Reclassification of the Species

FIG. 2. First two dimensions of principal components analysis (PCA) of ten meristic traits for five populations of SaLVELinUS. The populations analyzed included the three surveyed by Stauffer (2020) and Weathers et al. (2019) from Cosby (yellow), Greenbrier (green), and Indian Camp (blue) Creeks, collections from Weathers et al. (2019) for 35 additional streams in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP; gray), and three populations from Long Island, NY described by Stauffer and King (2014; red). Ellipses envelop 95% of variation for each population, and population centroids are indicated by a triangle.

FIG. 5 in Patterns of Phenotypic Variation in the Mouth Size of Lanternfishes (Teleostei: Myctophiformes)

FIG. 5. Time-calibrated phylogeny of lanternfishes from Davis et al. (2014) based on nuclear and mitochondrial data. Maximum likelihood and parsimony ancestral character-state reconstructions shown at nodes. Where reconstructions differ, parsimony is above the node and likelihood is below the node.

FIG. 4 in Patterns of Phenotypic Variation in the Mouth Size of Lanternfishes (Teleostei: Myctophiformes)

FIG. 4. Relative warp analysis of mouth size in: (A) Lampanyctinae; (B) lampanyctine genera with high morphospace variation; (C–E) examples of lampanyctine genera with separation in morphospace.

FIG. 6 in Patterns of Phenotypic Variation in the Mouth Size of Lanternfishes (Teleostei: Myctophiformes)

FIG. 6. Relative warp analysis of upper-jaw length among species of Diaphus. The two main trends of mouth size are represented by text color and outlines on the circles representing specimens; black text and outlines indicate longer upper jaws and orange text with white outlines indicate shorter upper jaws. The presence of short and long upper jaws are indicated on a summary phylogeny of species within Diaphus (Denton, 2014), with species included in this study indicated by a circle and species coded from an external source indicated by a square (Froese and Pauly, 2015). Circles and squares colored black indicate longer upper jaws, whereas orange indicates shorter upper jaws.

FIG. 3 in Patterns of Phenotypic Variation in the Mouth Size of Lanternfishes (Teleostei: Myctophiformes)

FIG. 3. Relative warp analysis of mouth size in: (A) Myctophinae; (B) myctophine genera with high morphospace variation; (C–E) examples of myctophine genera with separation in morphospace.

FIG. 1 in Patterns of Phenotypic Variation in the Mouth Size of Lanternfishes (Teleostei: Myctophiformes)

FIG. 1. Examples of variation in upper-jaw morphology among lanternfishes. Scale bars represent 5 mm. (A) Myctophum obtusirostre (MCZ 51389); (B) Hygophum macrochir (MCZ 115225); (C) Stenobrachius leucopsarus (FMNH 71832); (D) Nannobrachium cuprarium (MCZ 112776); (E) Neoscopelus macrolepidotus (FMNH 112581); (F) Scopelengys tristis (USNM 201152); (G) Landmark placement sites on lanternfish specimens. Gonichthys tenuiculus (FMNH 71685).

opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →

Data from: Phenotypic variation in overwinter environmental transmission of a baculovirus and the cost of virulence

A pathogen's ability to persist in the environment is an ecologically important trait, and variation in this trait may promote coexistence of different pathogen strains. We asked whether naturally occurring isolates of the baculovirus that infects gypsy moth larvae varied in their overwinter environmental transmission, and whether this variation was consistent with a tradeoff or an upper limit to virulence that might promote pathogen diversity. We used experimental manipulations to replicate the natural overwinter infection process using 16 field-collected isolates. Virus isolates varied substantially in the fraction of larvae infected, leading to differences in overwinter transmission rates. Furthermore, isolates that killed more larvae also had higher rates of early larval death in which no infectious particles were produced, consistent with a cost of high virulence. Our results thus support the existence of a cost that could impose an upper limit to virulence even in a highly virulent pathogen.

opennotspecifiedJun 2013View details →

FIGURE 2. A in Extension of the Cryptanthus range in Northeastern Brazil with new findings in the phenotypic variation including changes in the trichome's distribution, thus enhancing the understanding of the Cryptanthus zonatus complex (Bromeliaceae)

FIGURE 2. A. Two color morphs (maroon and green – indicated by the arrow) growing intermingled in the understory of Mata Estrela. B. Maroon color morph plant growing next to a banded individual that present a basal glabrous leaf (arrow) at Parque das Dunas. C. Signs of trichome loss on the older leaves (arrow), by a maroon banded individual from Parque das Dunas. D. Green individual showing dark red/maroon marks on the base of the leaves, Parque das Dunas. E. Two rosettes showing similar pigmentation (green along the center and dark red/maroon at the margins) but contrasting in the banded-lepidote versus glabrous adaxial surface. F. Individual displaying the colors green and wine-red spots (scale = 14 cm). G. Blooming individual of the banded form presenting a staminate flower. H. Bisexual flower of the maroon morph. I. Basal stolon (arrow), in the maroon morph. J. Basal stolon (arrow), in the banded morph.

opennotspecifiedJun 2013View details →

FIGURE 1 in Extension of the Cryptanthus range in Northeastern Brazil with new findings in the phenotypic variation including changes in the trichome's distribution, thus enhancing the understanding of the Cryptanthus zonatus complex (Bromeliaceae)

FIGURE 1. Map of Rio Grande do Norte state indicating the two new occurrences of Cryptanthus zonatus.

opencc-zeroDec 2021View details →

Isolation by geographical distance after release from Pleistocene refugia explains genetic and phenotypic variation in Xylotrupes siamensis (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

Consistent and objective species delimitation is crucial to biodiversity studies, but challenges remain when conflicting taxonomic decisions have been made because different data sets and analytical methods were used to delineate species. In the rhinoceros beetle, Xylotrupes siamensis, the use of different morphological characters has resulted in taxonomic disagreement between studies. We used three molecular loci (mitochondrial CO1 and nuclear ITS2 and H3) to investigate the genetic divergence between populations exhibiting different male horn phenotypes. We also applied an approximate Bayesian computation approach to test alternative historical hypotheses that might explain the present genetic diversity among geographical populations. Furthermore, we used species distribution models to estimate the temporal variation in the geographical distribution of suitable habitats. The results show that the two phenotypic taxa within X. siamensis are not genetically structured and that their genetic structure can be explained using isolation by geographical distance. The emergence of the two phenotypic taxa might have been associated with historical isolation in separate refugia. However, spatial expansion and genetic interchange between populations might have gradually eroded the spatial genetic structure. We demonstrate that understanding the historical processes responsible for phenotypic divergence and genetic diversity among current populations could help with making evolutionarily coherent taxonomic decisions.

opencc-zeroJul 2021View details →

Phenotypic variation in male Calopteryx splendens damselflies: The role of wing pigmentation and body size in thermoregulation

For an ectothermic insect, its color and size are important determinants of body temperature: dark colors absorb heat more efficiently, while larger bodies require more heat to reach a certain temperature. These dark colors are expressed using melanin, which has been intimately linked with an insect's thermoregulatory capabilities. Melanin is also linked with immune defense and is often used as a secondary sexual character in insects. There is a potential trade-off situation between thermoregulatory capabilities, immune defence and secondary sexual characters, all of which use melanin. Some Calopteryx damselflies, such as Calopteryx splendens, have melanin-based wing pigmentation that is sexually selected and drives intra- and interspecific territorial aggressions. Our goal was to experimentally study how the wing pigmentation and body size of C. splendens males affect their thermoregulation and especially their ability to become active after being cooled down. Our results are in line with our hypotheses showing that (i) individuals with larger wing spots had significantly faster activation times than those with smaller wing spots, and (ii) individuals with larger body size had significantly slower activation times than those with smaller body size. Both variables showed an interaction and thus are important in damselfly warm up and activation. We discuss the role wing pigmentation and thermoregulation can have on the behavioral patterns observed in Calopteryx species.

opennotspecifiedJul 2021View details →

FIGURE 1 in Phenotypic variation in Heremites vittatus (Olivier, 1804) (Sauria: Scincidae) from Iran and Turkey

FIGURE 1. Sampling localities of all examined specimens from Iran and Turkey. Colors refer to the country specimens (Red refer to Turkish specimens; Blue refer to Iranian specimens). Numbers next to the dots refer to the specimens in Appendix 1.

opennotspecifiedJul 2021View details →

FIGURE 3 in Phenotypic variation in Heremites vittatus (Olivier, 1804) (Sauria: Scincidae) from Iran and Turkey

FIGURE 3. Ordination of the individuals of all localities on the first two canonical variates of 16 characters.