GELIFES Seminars - Sonia Sultan

Sonia Sultan (Wesleyan University)

Eco-devo insights to adaptive diversity - Plasticity in Polygonum

Development takes shape through the interaction of an organism’s genotype with its environment, an interaction that can be surprisingly complex both within and across generations. How does this causal entanglement change our view of evolution? Ecological developmental biology (‘Eco-Devo’) explicitly examines phenotypic expression in environmental context. A suite of within- and trans-generational norm of reaction experiments with annual Polygonum plants provides a case study that reveals the repertoires of adaptive and maladaptive plasticity inherent in individual genotypes in response to field-based controlled environments. Results point to newly expanded answers to two fundamental evolutionary issues: the nature of adaptation, and the kind of biological information that is inherited.