title: Fitness of multidimensional phenotypes in dynamic adaptive landscapes.
abstract: Phenotypic traits influence species distributions, but ecology lacks established links between multidimensional phenotypes and fitness for predicting species responses to environmental change. The common focus on single traits rather than multiple trait combinations limits our understanding of their adaptive value, and intraspecific trait covariation has been neglected in ecology despite its importance in evolutionary theory and its likely impact on species distributions. Here, we extend the adaptive landscape framework to ecological sorting of multidimensional phenotypes across environments and discuss how two analytical approaches can be used to quantify fitness as a function of the interaction between the phenotype and the environment. We encourage ecologists to consider how phenotypic integration will constrain species responses to environmental change.
authors.affiliation: Environmental Research Institute and School of Science, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand. Electronic address: d.laughlin@waikato.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Daniel C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Laughlin
authors.affiliation: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 1041 E. Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Messier
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004777:Environment; D056084:Genetic Fitness; D010641:Phenotype
keywords: adaptive landscapes; community ecology; fitness components; global change; intraspecific trait covariation; multivariate trait distributions; phenotypic integration; species distribution model