Journal
JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Volume 24, Issue 12, Pages 2653-2662Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2011.02388.x
Keywords
adaptation; cost of adaptation; environmental maternal effects; experimental evolution; phenotypic plasticity; specialization
Categories
Funding
- French Biodiversity Institute [ANR-05-BDIV-014]
- Portuguese Government [FCT-BI 15997]
- VAN GOGH
- PESSOA
- [EIF 501593]
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Detecting adaptation involves comparing the performance of populations evolving in different environments. This detection may be confounded by effects due to the environment experienced by organisms prior to the test. We tested whether such confounding effects occur, using spider-mite selection lines on two novel hosts and one ancestral host, after 15 generations of selection. Mites were either sampled directly from the selection lines or subjected to a common juvenile or to a common maternal environment, mimicking the most frequent environmental manipulations. These environments strongly affected all life-history traits. Moreover, the detection of adaptation and correlated responses on the ancestral host was inconsistent among environments in almost 20% of the cases. Indeed, we did not detect responses unambiguously for any life-history trait. This inconsistency was due to differential environmental effects on lines from different selection regimes. Therefore, the detection of adaptation requires a careful control of these environmental effects.
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