Data and code from: Experimental evolution of environmental tolerance, acclimation, and physiological plasticity in a randomly fluctuating environment

Environmental tolerance curves, representing absolute fitness against the environment, are an empirical assessment of the fundamental niche, and emerge from the phenotypic plasticity of underlying phenotypic traits. Dynamic plastic responses of these traits can lead to acclimation effects, whereby recent past environments impact current fitness. Theory predicts that higher levels of phenotypic plasticity should evolve in environments that fluctuate more predictably, but there have been few experimental tests of these predictions. Specifically, will still lack experimental evidence for evolution of acclimation effects in response to environmental predictability. Here, we exposed 25 genetically diverse populations of the halotolerant microalgae Dunaliella salina to different constant salinities, or to randomly fluctuating salinities, for over 200 generations. The fluctuating treatments differed in their autocorrelation, which determines the similarity of subsequent values, and thus enviro...