Abstract
Much research has been devoted to study evolution of local adaptations by natural selection, and to explore the roles of neutral processes and developmental plasticity for patterns of diversity among individuals, populations and species. Some aspects, such as evolution of adaptive variation in phenotypic traits in stable environments, and the role of plasticity in predictable changing environments, are well understood. Other aspects, such as the role of sex differences for evolution in spatially heterogeneous and temporally changing environments and dynamic fitness landscapes, remain elusive. An increased understanding of evolution requires that sex differences in development, physiology, morphology, life-history and behaviours are more broadly considered. Studies of selection should take into consideration that the relationships linking phenotypes to fitness may vary not only according to environmental conditions but also differ between males and females. Such opposing selection, sex-by-environment interaction effects of selection and sex-specific developmental plasticity can have consequences for population differentiation, local adaptations and for the dynamics of polymorphisms. Integrating sex differences in analytical frameworks and population comparisons can therefore illuminate neglected evolutionary drivers and reconcile unexpected patterns. Here, I illustrate these issues using empirical examples from over 20 years of research on colour polymorphic Tetrix subulata and Tetrix undulata pygmy grasshoppers, and summarize findings from observational field studies, manipulation experiments, common garden breeding experiments and population genetics studies.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Linking local adaptation with the evolution of sex differences’.
Highlights
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Linking local adaptation with the evolution of sex differences’
To understand and predict the different ways by which individuals, populations and species respond when confronted with environmental change remain key aims in ecology and evolution [1,2,3]
It is universally accepted that spatially divergent selection in combination with gene flow generally provides broad conditions for the maintenance of genetic polymorphisms [5,6,7]
Summary
(a) Coping with a changing world: responses to spatial and temporal heterogeneity. To understand and predict the different ways by which individuals, populations and species respond when confronted with environmental change remain key aims in ecology and evolution [1,2,3]. Complexity is increased even more when environments vary in both time and space, forming dynamic mosaic landscapes In such systems, genetic drift and rearrangements owing to abundance fluctuations and founder events driven by dispersing phenotypes may constitute important drivers of evolutionary change and contribute to population divergence, besides divergent selection and local adaptations. Males and females have different roles, resolve life-history tradeoffs differently and are often subjected to opposing selection, leading to sex-specific genetic variation and architecture of phenotypic traits [24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31] It remains an open question whether sex-specific differences generally constrain the evolution of local adaptations or instead preserve genetic diversity, thereby promoting the capacity to cope with challenges. I illustrate these issues building on examples from over 20 years of research on pygmy grasshoppers
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