Environmental coupling of heritability and selection is rare and of minor evolutionary significance in wild populations

TY - JOUR

T1 - Environmental coupling of heritability and selection is rare and of minor evolutionary significance in wild populations

AU - Ramakers, J.J.C.

AU - Culina, A.

AU - Visser, M.E.

AU - Gienapp, P.

N1 - 6552, AnE; Data archiving: data archived at Dryad

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Predicting the rate of adaptation to environmental change in wild populations is important for understanding evolutionarychange. However, predictions may be unreliable if the two key variables affecting the rate of evolutionary change—heritabilityand selection—are both affected by the same environmental variable. To determine how general such an environmentallyinduced coupling of heritability and selection is, and how this may influence the rate of adaptation, we made use of freely accessible,open data on pedigreed wild populations to answer this question at the broadest possible scale. Using 16 populations from 10 vertebrate species, which provided data on 50 traits (relating to body mass, morphology, physiology, behaviour andlife history), we found evidence for an environmentally induced relationship between heritability and selection in only 6 cases, with weak evidence that this resulted in an increase or decrease in the expected selection response. We conclude that such a coupling of heritability and selection is unlikely to strongly affect evolutionary change, even though both heritability and selection are commonly postulated to be dependent on the environment.

AB - Predicting the rate of adaptation to environmental change in wild populations is important for understanding evolutionarychange. However, predictions may be unreliable if the two key variables affecting the rate of evolutionary change—heritabilityand selection—are both affected by the same environmental variable. To determine how general such an environmentallyinduced coupling of heritability and selection is, and how this may influence the rate of adaptation, we made use of freely accessible,open data on pedigreed wild populations to answer this question at the broadest possible scale. Using 16 populations from 10 vertebrate species, which provided data on 50 traits (relating to body mass, morphology, physiology, behaviour andlife history), we found evidence for an environmentally induced relationship between heritability and selection in only 6 cases, with weak evidence that this resulted in an increase or decrease in the expected selection response. We conclude that such a coupling of heritability and selection is unlikely to strongly affect evolutionary change, even though both heritability and selection are commonly postulated to be dependent on the environment.

KW - Adaptation

KW - Selection

KW - Evolutionary change

KW - environmental heterogeneity

KW - heritability

KW - open data

KW - open science

KW - NIOO

UR - https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3mk7f2q

U2 - 10.1038/s41559-018-0577-4

DO - 10.1038/s41559-018-0577-4

M3 - Article

SN - 2397-334X

VL - 2

SP - 1093

EP - 1103

JO - Nature Ecology and Evolution

JF - Nature Ecology and Evolution

ER -