Introduction
Biologists have developed a small handful of unifying themes to explain the astonishing diversity of form and function exhibited by organisms. Phenotypic plasticity is one of those themes that continues to fascinate biologists from diverse backgrounds from ecologists and geneticists to developmental and evolutionary biologists. It is often a subject that students have difficulty grasping, for phenotypic plasticity is the result of the interplay between two distinct but interacting identities – the genetics of an organism and its environment – but is responsible for much of the intraspecific variation observed in ecological contexts. In this chapter, we will describe phenotypic plasticity, offer examples of how it can confer putative adaptive advantages for species in predictably variable environments, explore how phenotypic expression is facilitated and constrained by predetermined patterns of phenotypic expression throughout growth and development, and discuss...
Keywords
- Plant phenotypic plasticity
- Environmental change
- Ontogenetic drift
- Ontogeny
- Developmental trajectories
- Adaptive phenotypic plasticity
- Allometry
- Norms of reaction
- Modules/modularity
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Pham, B., McConnaughay, K. (2015). Plant Phenotypic Expression in Variable Environments. In: Monson, R. (eds) Ecology and the Environment., vol 8. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7612-2_16-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7612-2_16-2
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Latest
Plant Phenotypic Expression in Variable Environments- Published:
- 13 October 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7612-2_16-2
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Environmental Selection and Convergent Evolution of Plant Phenotypes- Published:
- 25 February 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7612-2_16-1