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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Daniel Nettle, Professor Melissa BatesonORCiD
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Developmental plasticity describes situations where a specific input during an individual's development produces a lasting alteration in phenotype. Some instances of developmental plasticity may be adaptive, meaning that the tendency to produce the phenotype conditional on having experienced the developmental input has been under positive selection. We discuss the necessary assumptions and predictions of hypotheses concerning adaptive developmental plasticity (ADP) and develop guidelines for how to test empirically whether a particular example is adaptive. Central to our analysis is the distinction between two kinds of ADP: informational, where the developmental input provides information about the future environment, and somatic state-based, where the developmental input enduringly alters some aspect of the individual's somatic state. Both types are likely to exist in nature, but evolve under different conditions. In all cases of ADP, the expected fitness of individuals who experience the input and develop the phenotype should be higher than that of those who experience the input and do not develop the phenotype, while the expected fitness of those who do not experience the input and do not develop the phenotype should be higher than those who do not experience the input and do develop the phenotype. We describe ancillary predictions that are specific to just one of the two types of ADP and thus distinguish between them.
Author(s): Nettle D, Bateson M
Publication type: Review
Publication status: Published
Journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences
Year: 2015
Volume: 282
Issue: 1812
Pages: 23-31
Print publication date: 01/08/2015
Online publication date: 22/07/2015
Acceptance date: 24/06/2015
ISSN (print): 0962-8452
ISSN (electronic): 1471-2954
Publisher: ROYAL SOC
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1005
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1005
