title: Temperature-Dependent Sex Determination under Rapid Anthropogenic Environmental Change: Evolution at a Turtle's Pace?
abstract: Organisms become adapted to their environment by evolving through natural selection, a process that generally transpires over many generations. Currently, anthropogenically driven environmental changes are occurring orders of magnitude faster than they did prior to human influence, which could potentially outpace the ability of some organisms to adapt. Here, we focus on traits associated with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), a classic polyphenism, in a model turtle species to address the evolutionary potential of species with TSD to respond to rapid climate change. We show, first, that sex-ratio outcomes in species with TSD are sensitive to climatic variation. We then identify the evolutionary potential, in terms of heritability, of TSD and quantify the evolutionary potential of 3 key traits involved in TSD: pivotal temperature, maternal nest-site choice, and nesting phenology. We find that these traits display different patterns of adaptive potential: pivotal temperature exhibits moderate heritable variation, whereas nest-site choice and nesting phenology, with considerable phenotypic plasticity, have only modest evolutionary potential to alter sex ratios. Therefore, the most likely response of species with TSD to anthropogenically induced climate change may be a combination of microevolution in thermal sensitivity of the sex-determining pathway and of plasticity in maternal nesting behavior.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California-Berkeley, 130 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720 (Refsnider) and Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, 251 Bessey Hall, Ames, IA 50011 (Janzen).
authors.forename: Jeanine M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Refsnider
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California-Berkeley, 130 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720 (Refsnider) and Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, 251 Bessey Hall, Ames, IA 50011 (Janzen). fjanzen@iastate.edu.
authors.forename: Fredric J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Janzen
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological / Q000235:genetics; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D057231:Climate Change; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009425:Nesting Behavior; D010641:Phenotype; D019849:Sex Determination Processes; D012744:Sex Ratio; D013696:Temperature; D014426:Turtles / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: climate change; heritability; nest-site choice; phenology; pivotal temperature; reptile