Experimental evidence of rapid heritable adaptation in the absence of initial standing genetic variation

The success of genetically depauperate populations in the face of environmental change is contrary to the expectation that high genetic diversity is required for rapid adaptation. Alternative pathways such as environmentally induced genetic modifications and non-genetic heritable phenotypes have been proposed mechanisms for heritable adaptation within an ecologically relevant timeframe. However, experimental evidence is currently lacking to establish if, and to what extent, these sources of phenotypic variation can produce a response.

To test if adaptation can rapidly occur in the absence of initial standing genetic variation and recombination in small populations, we (i) exposed replicate monoclonal populations of the microzooplankton Brachionus calyciflorus to a culturing regime that selected for phenotypic variants with elevated population growth with either high or low phosphorus food for a period of 55 days and (ii) examined population-level response in two fully factorial commo...