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Review
The role of developmental plasticity
in evolutionary innovation
Armin P. Moczek1,*, Sonia Sultan2, Susan Foster3,
Cris Ledo
´n-Rettig4, Ian Dworkin5, H. Fred Nijhout6, Ehab Abouheif7
and David W. Pfennig8
1
Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
2
Department of Biology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459-0170, USA
3
Department of Biology, Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610-1477, USA
4
Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
5
Department of Zoology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
6
Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
7
Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
8
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Explaining the origins of novel traits is central to evolutionary biology. Longstanding theory suggests that
developmental plasticity, the abilityof an individual to modify its development in response to environmental
conditions, might facilitate the evolution of novel traits. Yet whether and how such developmental flexibility
promotes innovations that persist over evolutionary time remains unclear. Here, we examine three distinct
ways by which developmental plasticity can promote evolutionary innovation. First, we show how the pro-
cess of genetic accommodation provides a feasible and possibly common avenue by which environmentally
induced phenotypes can become subject to heritable modification. Second, we posit that the developmental
underpinnings of plasticity increase the degrees of freedom by which environmental and genetic factors
influence ontogeny, thereby diversifying targets for evolutionary processes to act on and increasing oppor-
tunities for the construction of novel, functional and potentially adaptive phenotypes. Finally, we examine
the developmental genetic architectures of environment-dependent trait expression, and highlight their
specific implications for the evolutionary origin of novel traits. We critically review the empirical evidence
supporting each of these processes, and propose future experiments and tests that would further illuminate
the interplay between environmental factors, condition-dependent development, and the initiation and
elaboration of novel phenotypes.
Keywords: genetic accommodation; genetic assimilation; novelty; developmental plasticity
1. INTRODUCTION
Identifying the factors that promote the origin of complex,
novel traits is among the most intriguing and enduring pro-
blems in evolutionary biology [1]. It is intriguing because it
lies at the heart of what motivates much of evolutionary
biology: to understand the origins of exquisite adaptations,
and the transitions and radiations that they fuelled. It is
enduring because it embodies a fundamental paradox. On
the one hand, Darwin’s theory of evolution is based on des-
cent with modification, wherein everything new, ultimately,
must come from something old [2]. On the other hand,
biologists are captivated by complex novel traits precisely
because they often lack obvious homology to pre-existing
traits [3]. How, then, does novelty arise within the confines
of ancestral developmental patterns and variation?
In this review, we describe how the study of develop-
mental plasticity can offer significant insights into the
origins of evolutionary innovation. We define evolutionary
innovation broadly, ranging from the expression of traits or
trait variants that are themselves novel to the expression of
existing traits in new behavioural, physiological or mor-
phological contexts. Developmental plasticity, in turn, is
defined as a single genotype’s ability to alter its develop-
mental processes and phenotypic outcomes in response to
different environmental conditions. Such environmental
effects on trait expression can range from modest adjust-
ments to growth rate or tissue allocation in response to
resource levels, to dramatic polyphenic switches by which
a single genotype can give rise to discrete and often radically
different alternative phenotypes [4]. Intriguingly, many
innovations of macroevolutionary significance also occur
as facultatively expressed alternatives in related lineages
(figure 1; electronic supplementary material, table S1).
This raises the central questions our article aims to address:
can major novel traits originate as plastic, environment-
dependent alternatives to already established, ancestral
phenotypes? If so, what are the mechanisms by which
developmental plasticity may mediate the initiation and
subsequent elaboration of incipient novel traits?
*Author for correspondence (armin@indiana.edu).
Electronic supplementary material is available at http://dx.doi.org/
10.1098/rspb.2011.0971 or via http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org.
Proc. R. Soc. B (2011) 278, 2705–2713
doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.0971
Published online 15 June 2011
Received 9 May 2011
Accepted 24 May 2011 2705 This journal is q2011 The Royal Society
The notion that plasticity promotes innovation is not
new. Indeed, researchers have suggested for over a century
that developmental plasticity is crucial in the formation of
evolutionary novelties (reviewed in [5]). What is new, how-
ever, is that we are finally beginning to grasp the underlying
mechanisms by which developmental plasticity might
promote innovation. Our goal is therefore to integrate
knowledge of these mechanisms with theory and thereby
explain how developmental plasticity promotes innovation.
We begin by reviewing the causes, mechanisms and conse-
quences of genetic accommodation, a process by which
environmentally induced phenotypes can become subject
to heritable modification [5–7]. We then explore the
means by which developmental and genetic mechanisms
associated with environmentally induced alternatives influ-
ence the subsequent evolutionary potential of a lineage.
Finally, we investigate the developmental genetic architec-
tures that underlie environment-dependent trait expression
and discuss their implications for the evolutionary origin of
novel traits.
2. GENETIC ACCOMMODATION AND INNOVATION
Genetic accommodation is adaptive genetic change owing
to selection on the regulation and form of a mutationally
or environmentally induced novel phenotype [5,8,9].
Genetic accommodation does not require new mutations
to occur, but it might incorporate such mutations along
with standing genetic variation, including variants that
were formerly cryptic, neutral or rare in a population.
Genetic accommodation improves the function and inte-
gration of novel traits, and diminishes harmful pleiotropic
effects. Genetic accommodation can also promote the
persistence of developmental plasticity, refine the con-
ditions under which alternative traits are expressed and
enhance the precision of environmental matching. In
extreme cases, such as when a population is exposed to
a novel but relatively invariant environment, the novel
phenotype can become constitutive, a phenomenon
referred to as genetic assimilation [10]. Below, we briefly
discuss the properties of development that fuel evolution
by genetic accommodation. We then highlight empirical
studies that advance our understanding of the significance
of evolution by genetic accommodation.
(a)Developmental and genetic mechanisms
underlying genetic accommodation
Organisms have evolved a diverse array of homeostatic
mechanisms to buffer or canalize development against
environmental perturbations. These mechanisms are best
(a)(b)(c)
Figure 1. Environmentally dependent polyphenism in various taxa. (a)ThewaterfleaDaphnia longicephala develops protective
crests and tail spines in response to its water bug predator, Notonecta. Differences in coat colour and texture are produced in
Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) in response to seasonal change. (b) When a bluehead wrasse (Thalassoma bifasciatum) male (blue
morph) is removed from his harem, a female (yellow morph) will change phenotype completely and become a male. The
gaudy commodore, Precis octavis, is seasonally dimorphic. In the wet season, it has an orange wing and in the dry season
the wings are bluish purple in colour. Onthophagus nigriventris dung beetles metamorphose as horned major males or hornless
sneaker males in response to ample or insufficient larval feeding resources, respectively. (c) The tiger salamander (Ambystoma
tigrinum) only metamorphoses if its aquatic environment becomes uninhabitable. Larval nutrition determines major and minor
worker development in Pheidole rhea. The morphology of white water-buttercup (Ranunculus aquatilis) leaves depends on their
environment. Submerged leaves are branched into 20 or more thread-like segments. Floating or exposed leaves are scalloped.
2706 A. P. Moczek et al. Review. Plasticity and evolutionary innovation
Proc. R. Soc. B (2011)
understood in metabolic and physiological systems, but are
also beginning to be elucidated in developmental genetic
systems. Such mechanisms include feedback regulation,
duplicate or redundant pathways, a balance between antag-
onistic processes and switch-like behaviour [11,12]. Several
partially redundant homeostatic mechanisms may be at
work simultaneously in a given system, a redundancy that
further stabilizes the phenotype. Importantly, these same
mechanisms can also protect a developing organism from
genetic perturbations owing to mutations [13,14] (but
see [15]). By acting as a phenotypic buffer against both
environmental and genetic perturbations, homeostatic
mechanisms permit the accumulation of greater genetic
variability than would be possible in their absence. Cryptic
genetic variation that accumulates in this manner is a com-
ponent of, rather than separate from, the standing genetic
variation in a population. Specifically, it represents stand-
ing variation that is phenotypically unexpressed under
certain environmental or genetic circumstances and, as
such, contributes to the potential for either genotype-
by-environment or epistatic interactions to influence the
evolutionary process.
The expression and rapid evolution of novel pheno-
types become possible when the phenotypic effects of
accumulated genetic variation become expressed though
a change in the environment or a sensitizing mutation.
Once expressed, such formerly cryptic genetic variation
does not differ fundamentally from standing genetic vari-
ation for constitutively expressed traits. However, being
unexpressed under a subset of conditions allows cryptic
genetic variation that is neutral or even deleterious in
some environments to persist in a population, analogous
to models for recessive alleles.
How then does evolution by genetic accommodation
differ from adaptive evolution as traditionally understood?
In many ways, evolution by genetic accommodation pro-
vides a shift in emphasis, rather than a radically new view
of adaptive evolution. Traditional neo-Darwinian perspec-
tives on adaptive evolution generally envision a ‘waiting for
a mutation’ process [16], by which adaptations emerge
from the gradual accumulation and fixation of mutations
that change phenotype expression in a direction favou-
red by selection. In such models, standing genetic
variation is usually presented in the context of an equili-
brium between new mutations and removal by selection
(mutation– selection balance). Environmental conditions
are important, because they determine the nature and
direction of selection, whereas development provides the
means by which genotype is translated into phenotype.
Although both genetic variation and the selective role of
the environment remain key factors, evolution by genetic
accommodation differs from this traditional model in two
critical ways. First, it ascribes the additional role to the
environment of releasing novel phenotypes that express
previously accumulated genetic variation. In other words,
the environment plays a formative as well as a selective
role. Environmental perturbations can operate immedi-
ately on the level of populations and may persist for
generations, potentially releasing substantial heritable vari-
ation to confront new conditions. Second, evolution by
genetic accommodation emphasizes the role of develop-
mental processes in determining which genetic variants
will be manifested in selectable, phenotypic differences
and under what environmental circumstances this will
occur [5]. Critically, environment-dependent development
permits genetic variants to be neutral under a larger set of
circumstances, and thus to be hidden from selection, and
allowed to drift and accumulate in natural populations.
Evolution by genetic accommodation therefore expands
beyond a traditional neo-Darwinian model by recognizing
that the interplay between environment and development
provides a mechanism for both the accumulation and the
rapid release of genetic variation in the face of novel
environmental challenges.
But what evidence exists to suggest that genetic accom-
modation can indeed yield novel, adaptive phenotypes
under new conditions, and that this process shapes the
evolutionary trajectories of natural populations?
(b)Artificial selection experiments demonstrate
genetic accommodation
The earliest demonstration of evolution by genetic accom-
modation through artificial selection was Waddington’s
study on cross-vein expression on Drosophila [17]. Cross
veins contribute to torsional stiffness of the wing, and
vary in presence/absence and position within the Diptera
[18]. When exposed to ecologically relevant temperature
stress during development, flies expressed phenotypic vari-
ation for loss of cross veins, otherwise observed at low
frequency in natural populations (0.5%). Using artificial
selection, Waddington demonstrated that this variation
was heritable, and that the initially induced phenotype
could rapidly become constitutively expressed in a popu-
lation. Waddington and others further demonstrated that
a variety of phenotypes could become genetically assimi-
lated under artificial selection [19]. Subsequent work
demonstrated that unexpressed standing genetic variation
was responsible [20], and that segregating variation was
widespread in natural populations [21]. Similar results for
plants were obtained by Huether [22,23], who demon-
strated that the rare expression of flower morph variants
in Linanthus was, in part, the result of environmental
stress experienced by plants in the field. Huether then
demonstrated that such stress-induced variation was
indeed heritable via artificial selection, suggesting that
here, too, environmental conditions were responsible for
revealing selectable heritable variation.
More recently, laboratory studies on a broad array
of organisms (including Drosophila [15,24], Arabidopsis
[25], fungi [26] and Lepidoptera [8]) have focused on
the role of temperature stress and heat shock proteins as
a means of releasing selectable phenotypic diversity (but
see [27]). In these studies, environmental stress resulted
in a remarkable increase in the amount of selectable
phenotypic variation, mediating rapid responses to artifi-
cial selection—including some reminiscent of naturally
evolved phenotypes [8]. Artificial selection experiments
have thus demonstrated unequivocally that developmen-
tal systems confronted with challenging environments
can expose novel phenotypic variants, which in turn pro-
vide sufficient substrate for rapid, selective evolution of
novel forms.
(c)Genetic accommodation in natural populations
Demonstrating that genetic accommodation has occurred
in natural populations is considerably more challenging
than demonstrating that it can occur in the laboratory.
Review. Plasticity and evolutionary innovation A. P. Moczek et al. 2707
Proc. R. Soc. B (2011)
If genetic accommodation has played a role in the evolution
of a particular novel trait, then we would predict that
patterns of plasticity in ancestral populations should
resemble the constitutively expressed trait differences
observed in derived populations. A major impediment to
testing this prediction is that ancestral populations are
usually no longer available for study, making it difficult to
characterize ancestral reaction norms. The best systems
for testing this prediction are therefore those in which
ancestral populations are extant [28–30]. Below, we
describe several studies in which genetic accommodation
has been inferred in natural populations.
Our first example comes from the house finch (Car-
podacus mexicanus). Carpodacus mexicanus has colonized a
remarkable range of environments during its recent invasion
of North America, with resulting populations exhibiting
extensive differentiation in physiological responses to
environmental variation, including the induction of incubat-
ing behaviour and associated hormones in response to
temperature variation. Available data indicate that such
responses have been fine-tuned from plastic ancestors to
produce local adaptation, giving rise to populations with
divergent reproductive attributes after only 14 generations
[29]. Systems that have undergone such recent and rapid
evolution (see also [31]) provide excellent opportunities to
accurately describe ancestral patterns of developmental
plasticity.
Comparisons of longer-separated populations allow us
to determine whether ancestral plasticity can contribute
to greater novelty than that observed during contempor-
ary evolution. An example comes from the most recent
diversification of three-spine stickleback fish initiated as
glaciers retreated 12 000 years ago. As oceanic stickleback
invaded shallow lakes, giving rise to bottom-feeding
(benthic) populations, and deep lakes, giving rise to
planktivorous (limnetic) populations, differences in habi-
tat use favoured differentiation of suites of functionally
integrated traits including trophic morphology, body
form and behaviour. Experiments reveal that ancestral,
oceanic populations exhibit phenotypic plasticity that
parallels differentiation among independently replicated
freshwater benthic and limnetic ecotypes, but which are
of lesser magnitude [32,33]. These results are consistent
with the possibility that ancestral plasticity has guided
the evolution of more extreme features characteristic of
the derivative ecotypes. Combined, these examples
demonstrate how ancestral plasticity can be refined or
enhanced in derived populations.
When a single aspect of the phenotype is strongly
favoured, canalization of an initially inducible response
can also evolve rapidly. For example, introduction of salmo-
nid predators to alpine lakes inhabited by the zooplankter
Daphnia melanica has led to a loss of plasticity in an antipre-
dator defence [34]. Melanin protects D. melanica from UV
light but renders them conspicuous to piscine predators.
Following the introduction of salmonid predators to two
lakes, D. melanica exhibited a substantial decline in UV-
mediated plasticity of melanin production relative to that
expressed in predator-free populations. Where predators
were introduced, Daphnia exhibited constitutive upregu-
lation of the arthropod melanin gene ebony and Ddc
(dopa decarboxylase), both responsible for the adaptive
reduction of melanin production. Reduced plasticity has
also evolved in populations of three-spine stickleback
from geologically recent (post-glacial) freshwater lakes in
the expression of sodium– potassium ATPase (ATP1A1)
[35] with adaptation to fresh water, and in New World
spadefoot toad species that exhibit constitutively short
larval development as a result of their short natal pond dur-
ations [36]. Additional evidence of genetic assimilation is
found in the apparent loss of ancestral polyphenisms across
diverse taxa (electronic supplementary material, table S1).
Two important insights arise from the preceding
examples. First, comparisons of ‘ancestral’ and derived
populations may vary with respect to how long such
populations have diverged, presenting a potential trade-off
between the accuracy of assessing ancestral reaction
norms, and the uniqueness of a novel, derived trait. Sec-
ondly, although these examples demonstrate patterns
consistent with those we would expect from genetic accom-
modation [5,10], the fundamental features of this process—
that environmental stimuli initiate genetic and selection
processes—make it impossible to discriminate cases of
natural selection on environmentally dependent versus
constitutively expressed variation once natural selection
has occurred [37]. Nevertheless, the evidence for an envir-
onmentally dependent origin of novelty is, in such cases, as
strong as that for an origin based on constitutively expressed
standing genetic variation.
3. DEVELOPMENTAL PLASTICITY AND
EVOLVABILITY
Developmental plasticity can increase the evolutionary
potential, or ‘evolvability’, of developmental systems in
three important ways, thereby increasing a lineage’s
potential for diversification and innovation. We discuss
each of these three ways separately below.
(a)Developmental plasticity provides new targets
for evolutionary processes
Once environmentally mediated development has evolved,
the underlying mechanisms can promote evolutionary
diversification by increasing the points in ontogeny at
which change can potentially arise, thus increasing the
degrees of evolutionary freedom [38]. A consensus is
emerging that diversity in multicellular organisms primarily
reflects changes in the regulatory interactions that shape
gene expression [39 –41]. Highly complex regulatory inter-
actions are precisely what characterize plastic phenotypic
expression [42]. In plastic developmental systems, envi-
ronmental conditions influence development at various
points in ontogeny via multiple external and somatic signals.
External signals are transduced into cellular ones by means
of hormones, metabolites, receptor molecules, nervous sig-
nals, osmotic changes and physical interactions among cells.
This broad and diverse regulatory dimensionality dramati-
cally increases the potential evolutionary change points.
Additionally, because these regulatory systems are highly
epistatic, change in any one genetic element can lead to
novel phenotypic effects [38].
Furthermore, the different components underlying
plastic regulatory systems can evolve independently of
one another, thereby diversifying the evolutionary trajec-
tories available to a lineage, including those that may
eventually lead to novel, adaptive phenotypes. Such diverse
evolutionary opportunities are exemplified by the many
cases of threshold evolution in insects [4,19,43], evolved
2708 A. P. Moczek et al. Review. Plasticity and evolutionary innovation
Proc. R. Soc. B (2011)
divergences in response cues and response mechanisms
in plants [44,45], and timing and magnitude of plastic
responses in amphibians [46,47].
(b)Plasticity promotes novelty by providing
‘re-usable’ building blocks for development
Plastic developmental systems also promote evolutionary
novelty because shared regulatory modules—including
both the transduction or switch mechanism and the down-
stream pathways of phenotypic expression—can be re-used
and recombined in new ways in different descendent taxa
and environmental circumstances. Several recent studies
reveal how a common transduction event can activate
divergent phenotypic responses. In plants, for instance,
phytochromes are a family of photo-convertible molecules
found in above-ground plant cells that initiate the com-
plex signalling pathways involved in shade plasticity [48].
Phytochromes are activated by specific wavelengths of
transmitted and reflected light that stimulate sensitive
and rapid growth adjustments, such as stem and petiole
elongation that lifts leaves away from shade cast by neigh-
bouring plants—a ‘shade-avoidance syndrome’ shown to
be adaptive [49]. Interestingly, plants have evolved to use
the phytochrome sensory system to switch on an entirely
different suite of plastic responses: the production of defen-
sive compounds in response to herbivory via the jasmonate
signalling pathway [50]. Both shade avoidance and defence
plasticity use this diffuse sensory system, which can read
environmental conditions at any of the plant’s leaves or
branches to initiate either elongation or biosynthetic
responses within minutes. Similarly, in insects, the same
endocrine machinery plays a critical role in coordinating
alternative reproductive decisions (whether to invest in
growth and maintenance or reproduction), alternative
developmental decisions (moulting and metamorphosis)
and polyphenic development (facultative diapause, host
switch, caste and morph expression [51]). Re-use and
recombination of developmental machinery underlying
plastic responses have also been implicated in nematode
evolution, where dafachronic acid (DAF-12)-mediated
induction of dauer-stage formation (an adaptive response
to food shortage widespread across nematodes) has
become co-opted to mediate the induction of alternative
feeding morphologies in at least one species, Pristionchus
pacificus [52].
Conversely, different environmental cues and trans-
duction events can make use of a shared hormonal
pathway or other common downstream module, ‘re-
using’ that response pathway to produce a similar plastic
outcome in a novel ecological situation [42]. For instance,
the plastic ‘shade avoidance’ response mentioned above
consists largely of stem and petiole elongation. Rapid
elongation of these same structures is also an essential
plastic response to a plant’s submergence under water
(which can occur episodically in wetland habitats [53]).
Both shade and flooding elongation responses are
governed by shared hormonal pathways that interact
with the DELLA family of growth-restraining proteins
and expansin genes that affect cell-wall extensibility
[48,54,55]. Yet these shared developmental pathways
are initiated by entirely different environmental switches:
light spectral composition in the case of shade avoidance
and submergence-induced build-up of the gaseous
hormone ethylene in case of flooding elongation [55].
(c)Developmental plasticity creates novel
trait interactions
Patterns of phenotypic correlation among developmentally
or functionally related traits vary from one environment
to another when some or all of the constituent traits express
plasticity [56,57]. As a result, plastic developmental
systems can give rise to new trait interactions, trait covarian-
ces and fitness trade-offs that contribute to evolutionary
diversification, as reported for learning ability in cabbage
white butterflies [58] and diet-induced horn expression in
beetles [59]. However, plasticity does not always result
in a trade-off between traits: environmentally induced
morphologies may simply act as a platform for the modi-
fication of additional traits that work well as a suite. For
example, a shrimp diet can produce a short-gut morphology
in species of spadefoot toads that do not normally consume
shrimp. In other species, however, this environmentally
induced change in gut morphology is accompanied by a
suite of functionally integrated traits that jointly comprise a
distinct ecological response [60]. The phylogenetic relation-
ships of these lineages suggest that diet-induced gut plasticity
in spadefoots was followed by the evolution of these drastic
modifications of behavioural, morphological and physiologi-
cal plasticity. Plastic traits that differ among related species
can also interact with constitutive species-specific traits to
shape environment-specific fitness outcomes [56].
These examples illustrate that, just as plasticity can
contribute novel targets for evolutionary change, it may
also help generate novel trait interactions. Accordingly,
developmental plasticity may cause species and popu-
lations to diverge in many more traits than those
specifically targeted by a given evolutionary mechanism.
Such trait interactions can pose pleiotropic constraints
on adaptive evolution, but also have the potential to
shift the evolutionary trajectories available to lineages
into phenotypic and ecological space that otherwise
would remain unexplored.
4. DEVELOPMENTAL GENETIC BASIS OF PLASTIC
TRAITS: MECHANISMS AND CONSEQUENCES
The developmental genetic basis of conditional traits is
just beginning to be explored, yet it is already clear that
diverse mechanisms underlie environment-dependent
trait expression [61]. Here, we briefly examine the impli-
cations of two extremes in a continuum of developmental
control architectures. At one end of this continuum, the
same developmental genetic network can mediate the
expression of alternative phenotypes across environments
by altering the nature of interactions between network com-
ponents through environment-specific regulatory elements.
For example, comparative gene expression data suggest
that winged and wingless ant castes are produced develop-
mentally through caste-specific interruption of the same
wing-patterning network [62]. Although the points of inter-
ruption may differ among different wingless castes of the
same species (as well as between species), the same network
is involved in each case. Similarly, in horned beetles
the same developmental mechanism—programmed cell
death—is involved in generating both sexual and alternative
male dimorphisms in horn expression [63], and recent
microarray studies show that sexes and morphs overlap
substantially in patterns of gene expression [64]. In
such pleiotropic systems, the independent evolution of
Review. Plasticity and evolutionary innovation A. P. Moczek et al. 2709
Proc. R. Soc. B (2011)
alternative phenotypes can be constrained, as evolutionary
changes affecting expression of one phenotype will affect
other phenotypes regulated by the same developmental
genetic network. These constraints would be relaxed only
during periods when a given alternative morph was rare
or absent.
At the same time, shared mechanisms can maintain a
developmental system’s ability to express environment-
specific traits even during prolonged periods of
environmental stasis when certain alternatives are not
elicited. In this case, re-expression of such traits in descen-
dent lineages, or their co-option into novel contexts, may
become feasible with only minor evolutionary changes in
the underlying developmental genetic network. Indeed,
loss and recurrence of complex traits has been demonstrated
in a number of cases [65], and co-option of ancestral devel-
opmental networks during the genesis of novel complex
traits appears to be a ubiquitous feature of developmental
evolution [66]. However, it remains unclear whether devel-
opmental plasticity and polyphenic development enhance
retention and co-option of developmental pathways, or
whether both emerge simply as a product of the integrated
nature of development in general.
At the other end of the mechanistic continuum, distinct
genes and gene networks may mediate the expression of
alternative environmentally contingent phenotypes. Con-
text-specific gene expression is extremely widespread [67]
and may have evolved under selection to supersede the
pleiotropic constraints discussed above, permitting organ-
isms to fine-tune gene expression in each environmental
context. Additionally, environment-specific gene expres-
sion can have unique and fundamentally important
evolutionary consequences not shared by other types of
context-specific expression. While tissue- and stage-specific
expression occurs in every individual in a population,
environment-specific expression is restricted to those
individuals within a population and generation that
encounter a given environment. If selective environments
are coarse-grained (i.e. each individual encounters only
one environment during its lifetime), then environmental
frequencies determine the proportion of individuals
within a population that expresses a given set of environ-
ment-specific phenotypes and underlying gene networks.
Genes for which expression is restricted to a subset of indi-
viduals in each generation are predicted to experience
relaxed selection, because mutations occurring in gene
copies that reside in individuals who do not express these
genes are hidden from selection. Mutations thus accumu-
late faster in these genes than they do in genes that are
expressed in every individual [68].
Relaxed selection on components of environment-
specific gene-regulatory networks provides a population-
genetic mechanism by which developmental plasticity
can contribute to the evolution of new traits. Specifically,
population-genetic models predict that (i) the extent of
mutation accumulation should scale with the proportion
of unexpressed gene copies in a population [69]; (ii) con-
ditionally expressed genes may diverge many times faster
between species than similar genes for which expression
is condition-insensitive [70]; and (iii) during prolonged
periods of environmental stasis, genes that are not
expressed may undergo rapid degradation and loss of
function owing to continued mutation accumulation
[67]. (iv) Additionally, periods of environmental stasis
(and consistent selection) should allow genes that have
become constitutively expressed to undergo rapid bursts
of adaptive evolution, enabled, in part, by mutations
accumulated during prior periods of relaxed selection
on those genes.
The first three of these predictions are supported by a
growing body of empirical evidence (reviewed in [67]).
For instance, bacterial quorum-sensing genes, induced
only when certain population densities are reached,
show increased levels of variation within species when
compared with similar, constitutively expressed genes
[68]. In horn-polyphenic beetles, genes that are more
specific to alternative morphs show greater divergence
than genes for which expression is shared across morphs
[64]; and in aphids, where sexual and asexual generations
alternate, such that males are often expressed only once
every 10–20 female generations, male-specific genes
exhibit greatly accelerated divergence more consistent
with relaxed selection than positive selection [71]. Studies
on microbes also provide substantial support for the third
prediction (i.e. that unexpressed genes should rapidly
accumulate mutations and degrade during periods of
environmental stasis [72]).
But what about the converse? As we propose above, genes
that become constitutively expressed during periods of stasis
should be subject to the full strength of positive selection
rather than relaxed selection, such that mutations and
mutation combinations accumulated during prior periods
of relaxed selection on such genes can now promote their
rapid adaptive evolution. Although little direct evidence is
presently available to test this hypothesis, numerous studies
have highlighted the importance of cryptic genetic variation
that can be released during shifts into novel or stressful
environments [73,74] to facilitate rapid adaptive evolution
through genetic accommodation. Relaxed selection on
environment-specific genes may provide a key mechanism
by which such variations may accumulate.
We have discussed shared versus alternative develop-
mental genetic networks as extremes along a continuum
of models for the regulation of plastic trait expression.
In real organisms, both types of regulatory architecture
are probably involved, depending on the organism, trait
and level of biological organization in question. Indeed,
gene-expression surveys provide ample evidence that
both environment-shared and environment-specific
expression patterns are widespread [67]. Moreover, both
types of regulation can apply to the same trait at different
levels of a developmental genetic network: upstream reg-
ulators such as transcription factors tend to be highly
pleiotropic, whereas their downstream targets may be
expressed in a highly context-specific manner, and thus
more likely to become subject to relaxed selection. Both
regulatory models can even apply simultaneously to
different parts of the same gene: protein-coding regions
may be transcribed across environments, while the
action of promoters may be environment-specific. A simi-
lar situation may apply in cases of context-specific splicing
of exons (e.g. [75]).
Clearly, further integration of molecular, developmen-
tal and evolutionary mechanisms of conditional trait
expression will require a much more detailed understand-
ing of the developmental genetic machinery that underlies
plasticity. Here, traditional as well as emerging model sys-
tems in developmental and evolutionary genetics have the
2710 A. P. Moczek et al. Review. Plasticity and evolutionary innovation
Proc. R. Soc. B (2011)
potential to make important, cross-fertilizing contri-
butions. For instance, the role of dafachronic acid
signalling has been studied in detail in the regulation of
dauer-stage formation in the nematode and genetic
model system Caenorhabditis elegans, and recent work
has begun to explore the developmental co-option of
the same pathway in the regulation of derived alternative
feeding morphologies in related genera [52]. Similarly, a
combination of population genetic and mapping studies
on pea aphids permitted the identification of the aphicarus
locus (which influences both sex- and environment-
specific wing expression [76]), the regulatory role for
which is currently being studied using candidate genes
and pathways identified primarily through studies on
Drosophila wing development [77]. Finally, the increasing
availability and affordability of genetic and genomic tech-
niques permit their application directly onto organisms
famous for their developmental plasticity, such as water
fleas [78] or honeybees [79].
5. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Developmental plasticity has long been posited to play a
key role in the origin and diversification of novel traits.
With recent theoretical and technical advances, it is now
possible to critically test this broad hypothesis in the lab-
oratory and field. However, a number of key questions are
as yet unanswered. Below, we highlight five specific ques-
tions that provide fruitful avenues for future research into
plasticity’s role in innovation.
First, do most novel traits indeed begin as conditionally
expressed alternative phenotypes? Recent theoretical con-
siderations [5] suggest that novel, complex traits probably
start out as alternative phenotypes within populations.
However, more empirical studies are needed to assess the
generality of plasticity’s role in the origins of novelty. An
effective approach is to assess patterns of ancestral plasticity
in lineages that have given rise to taxa expressing derived
novelties to evaluate whether ancestral plasticity might
have provided the raw material for these novel traits. A
broad range of such studies will also reveal whether these
transitions are more often moderate and quantitative or
macroevolutionary in nature.
Second, how is developmental plasticity stabilized to pro-
duce novel phenotypes? Genetic accommodation occurs
when evolutionary processes act on quantitative genetic
variation underlying environmentally dependent traits,
thereby enhancing or diminishing plasticity. However,
we know very little about the developmental and genetic
mechanisms enabling plastic responses to be stabilized
as novel traits.
Third, what is the nature of genetic variation that fuels
evolution by genetic accommodation? Studies are needed to
determine the degree to which evolution by genetic
accommodation is fuelled by: (i) constitutively versus
conditionally expressed genetic variation; (ii) novel
mutations versus standing genetic variation; (iii) rare
versus common allelic variants; (iv) differential expression
of the same gene networks versus separate regulatory gene
networks; (v) changes in upstream regulator genes versus
downstream target genes; (vi) changes in promoter versus
coding regions; (vii) changes in cis-regulation or trans-
regulatory factors; and (viii) few or many genes of either
large or small effect.
Fourth, how common is genetic accommodation in natural
populations? Although genetic accommodation has been
demonstrated in the laboratory [8], the frequency and
importance of genetic accommodation in nature is unclear.
Studies in the wild are especially relevant, given that many
natural environments are undergoing dramatic and rapid
changes owing to global climate change, habitat degra-
dation and the increased presence of invasive species. At
the same time, genetic and genomic screening techniques,
from bar-coding to next-generation sequencing, are now
available well outside molecular model systems. Such
methods would permit population-wide changes in
phenotypic variation to be correlated with genome- or
transcriptome-wide surveys of variation patterns at DNA
and transcript levels, as populations encounter, respond
and adapt to profound environmental changes.
Finally, can we develop models that realistically integrate
developmental plasticity into a population genetics framework?
As evolutionary biologists use qualitative and quantitative
models to explore the role of environmental trait induction
and its influence on the direction and rate of evolution,
future research needs to test the assumptions and predic-
tions of these models. For instance, most current models
make implicit and explicit simplifying assumptions about
the developmental genetic architecture underlying plastic
traits, about how environments can influence trait
expression, and about the co-variation between the roles
of environment as inductive and selective agents. Empirical
verification of these assumptions will allow for a robust
theoretical framework to be developed to complement
and motivate empirical studies.
This paper grew out of a working group sponsored by
the National Evolutionary Synthesis Centre (NESCent),
organized by D.W.P. and A.P.M. We thank the other
members of our working group (M. J. West-Eberhard,
E. Snell-Rood, T. Cruickshank, C. Schlichting and
M. Wund) for stimulating discussions and helpful
suggestions on the manuscript, and three anonymous
reviewers for constructive comments on earlier versions. For
allowing us to use their images we would like to thank C.
Laforsch (Daphnia longicephala), J. and K. Hollingsworth
and K. Morehouse (Vulpes lagopus, USFWS), K. Clifton
(Thalassoma bifasciatum), R. Babb (Ambystoma tigrinum), A.
Wild (Pheidole rhea,Onthophagus nigriventris), and J. Crellin,
FloralImages (Ranunculus aquatilis).
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