More than meets the eye: The role of cryptic genetic variation in the evolution of novel phenotypes
There is a prevalence in evolutionary thought that novelty typically arises through either incremental change or the co-option of previously existing traits or genes. Oft ignored in this framework is the capacity of the environmental-developmental interaction to yield novel or re-awakened ancestral phenotypes without changes to the underlying genetic architecture of the trait. Because these phenotypes were not previously expressed (or at least not under normal conditions), the genetic underpinnings of the traits evolve through drift or indirect selection (i.e., selection on correlated traits). Environmental change and stress are, thus, mechanisms that can release new phenotypes, and these can be strikingly different in form and function from the status quo phenotype(s). The unmasking of cryptic genetic variation has the capacity to rapidly modify the phenotype space of a population, and thus the selective landscape. It is currently unclear how large a role cryptic genetic variation has had over evolutionary time, but the theoretical capacity of this process to shape major evolutionary events is now starting to be appreciated.
The goal of this workshop was to consider the mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity and its regulation, how environmental change/stress act on mechanisms governing plasticity, and what the evolutionary capacity of cryptic genetic variation is in the evolutionary past, current and future.
Organizers: ETT-Fellow Chris Smith & MGSE Speaker Jürgen Gadau
Speakers:
- Prof. Dr. Ehab Abouheif (Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal)
- Prof. Dr. Emilie C. Snell-Rood (College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota) via Skype
