title: When to rely on maternal effects and when on phenotypic plasticity?
abstract: Existing insight suggests that maternal effects have a substantial impact on evolution, yet these predictions assume that maternal effects themselves are evolutionarily constant. Hence, it is poorly understood how natural selection shapes maternal effects in different ecological circumstances. To overcome this, the current study derives an evolutionary model of maternal effects in a quantitative genetics context. In constant environments, we show that maternal effects evolve to slight negative values that result in a reduction of the phenotypic variance (canalization). By contrast, in populations experiencing abrupt change, maternal effects transiently evolve to positive values for many generations, facilitating the transmission of beneficial maternal phenotypes to offspring. In periodically fluctuating environments, maternal effects evolve according to the autocorrelation between maternal and offspring environments, favoring positive maternal effects when change is slow, and negative maternal effects when change is rapid. Generally, the strongest maternal effects occur for traits that experience very strong selection and for which plasticity is severely constrained. By contrast, for traits experiencing weak selection, phenotypic plasticity enhances the evolutionary scope of maternal effects, although maternal effects attain much smaller values throughout. As weak selection is common, finding substantial maternal influences on offspring phenotypes may be more challenging than anticipated.
authors: CoMPLEX, Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University, College London, London, United Kingdom; Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn, Campus, Tremough, United Kingdom. a.kuijper@ucl.ac.uk.
authors: Bram
authors: B
authors: Kuijper
authors: Rebecca B
authors: RB
authors: Hoyle
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D056084:Genetic Fitness; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010641:Phenotype; D012641:Selection, Genetic
keywords: environmental change; epigenetics; indirect genetic effect; maternal inheritance; nongenetic effect; phenotypic plasticity