Abstract
The impact of environmental change on animal populations is strongly influenced
by the ability of individuals to plastically adjust key life-history events. There is
therefore considerable interest in establishing the degree of plasticity in traits and
how selection acts on plasticity in natural populations. Breeding time is a key
life-history trait that affects fitness and recent studies have found that females
vary significantly in their breeding time-environment relationships, with selection
often favouring individuals exhibiting stronger plastic responses. In contrast, here,
we show that although breeding time in the Common Guillemot, Uria aalge, is
highly plastic at the population level in response to a large-scale environmental
cue (the North Atlantic Oscillation, NAO), there is very little between-individual
variation - most individuals respond to this climate cue very similarly. We
demonstrate strong stabilizing selection against individuals who deviate from the
average population-level response to NAO. The species differs significantly from
those previously studied in being a colonial breeder, in which reproductive
synchrony has a substantial impact on fitness; we suggest that counter selection
imposed by a need for synchrony could limit individuals in their response and
potential for directional selection to act. This demonstrates the importance of
considering the relative costs and benefits of highly plastic responses in
assessing the likely response of a population to the environmental change.
Keywords:
phenotypic plasticity;
phenology;
stabilizing selection;
climate change;
guillemot (Uria aalge)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3631
Notes
Local copy
Internal Links
- Common Guillemot (Uria aalge)
- phenotypic plasticity
- phenology
- stabilizing selection
- climate change
- North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)
Reed, T.E.,
Wanless, S.,
Harris, M.P.,
Frederiksen, M.,
Kruuk, L.E.B.,
Cunningham, E.J.A.,
- Isle of May
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Links to this page
- Reed TE, Wanless S, Harris MP, Frederiksen M, Kruuk LEB & Cunningham
EJA (2006) "Responding to environmental change: plastic responses vary little in
a synchronous breeder" Proc. R. Soc. B 273:2713-2719
[Notes]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3631
Reed et al (2006)
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