Data from: The coevolution of lifespan and reversible plasticity

Reversible phenotypic plasticity, the ability to change one’s phenotype
repeatedly throughout life, can be selected for in environments that do
not stay constant throughout an individual’s lifetime. It might also
mitigate senescence, as the mismatch between the varying environment and a
non-plastic individual’s traits is likely to increase as time passes. To
understand why reversible plasticity may covary with lifespan, studies
tend to assume unidirectional causality: plasticity evolves under suitable
rates of environmental variation with respect to life history. Here we
show that if lifespan also evolves in response to plasticity, then long
life is not merely a context that sets the stage for lifelong plasticity.
Instead, the causality is bidirectional because plasticity itself can
select for longevity. Highly autocorrelated environmental fluctuations
predict low investment in reversible plasticity and a phenotype that is
poorly matched to the environment at older ages. Such environments select
for high reproductive effort and short lifespans.