ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 3742
Poster No. = 485


COSTS OF PLASTICITY IN ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA


Lisa A. Dorn*, Elizabeth Hammond-Pyle, and Johanna Schmitt, Brown University


Costs of plasticity may be an important constraint on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity but few investigators have found evidence of costs. In an experiment with gentoypes derived from four natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana, we examined their response to density, and foliage shade. We found adaptive plasticity to foliage shade was rarely costly, but maladaptive plasticity to density was often costly. These costs persist because of a functional tradeoff between the adaptive response to foliage shade and the maladaptive response to density.


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