A tradeoff between robustness to environmental fluctuations and speed of evolution

Max Schmid, Maria Paniw, Maarten Postuma, Arpat Ozgul, Frédéric Guillaume*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Non-textual formSoftware

Abstract

The ability of a species to cope with both long-term and short-term environmental fluctuations might vary with the species' life history. While some life-history characteristics promote large and stable population sizes despite interannual environmental fluctuations, other life-history strategies might allow to evolve quickly in response to long-term gradual changes. In a theoretical study, we show that there is a tradeoff between both properties. Life-history characteristics that promote fast rates of evolution come at the expense of a poor response to short-term environmental fluctuations, and vice versa. We demonstrated the presence of this tradeoff by the use of a mathematical analysis and individual-based simulations.
Original languageEnglish
PublisherWageningen University
Media of outputOnline
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Mar 2022

Keywords

  • environmental change
  • environmental stochasticity
  • evolutionary rescue
  • evolvability
  • life history strategies
  • sensitivity

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