New paper in Nature Communications on the role of plasticity in adaptive evolution of urban anoles
Selection on adaptive and maladaptive gene expression plasticity during thermal adaptation to urban heat islands
Shane C. Campbell-Staton, Jonathan P. Velotta & Kristin M. Winchell
“Our findings support the role of phenotypic plasticity in adaptation to novel environments and highlight reduction/reversal of maladaptive plasticity as the predominant target of natural selection in urban heat islands. These findings are generally consistent with an emerging pattern: although adaptive plasticity facilitates survival and population persistence at early stages of colonization, genetic changes that minimize and/or reverse, rather than reinforce, phenotypic plasticity appear to be stronger and more frequent targets of selection”