Data for: Adaptive, maladaptive, neutral, or absent plasticity: Hidden caveats of reaction norms

Adaptive phenotypic plasticity may improve the response of individuals when faced with new environmental conditions. Typically, empirical evidence for plasticity is based on phenotypic reaction norms obtained in reciprocal transplant experiments. In such experiments, individuals from their native environment are transplanted into a different environment, and a number of trait values, potentially implicated in individuals’ response to the new environment, are measured. However, the interpretations of reaction norms may differ depending on the nature of the assessed traits, which may not be known beforehand. For example, for traits that contribute to local adaptation, adaptive plasticity implies non-zero slopes of reaction norms. By contrast, for traits that are correlated to fitness, high tolerance to different environments (possibly due to adaptive plasticity in traits that contribute to adaptation) may, instead, result in flat reaction norms. Here we investigate reaction norms for adap...适应性表型可塑性（adaptive phenotypic plasticity）可提升个体在面临全新环境条件时的应对能力。通常，有关可塑性的实证研究证据均基于互易移植实验（reciprocal transplant experiments）中获取的表型反应规范（phenotypic reaction norms）。在这类实验中，研究者会将源自原生环境的个体移植至非原生境，并对一系列可能与个体应对新环境能力相关的性状值（trait values）进行测定。然而，反应规范的解读逻辑可能因所评估性状的本质而异，而此类性状的本质往往无法预先获知。例如，对于参与本地适应的性状而言，适应性表型可塑性意味着反应规范的斜率非零。与之相对，对于与适合度（fitness）相关的性状来说，对不同环境的高耐受性（其成因可能源于参与适应过程的性状所具备的适应性表型可塑性）反而可能导致反应规范呈现平坦态势。本文旨在探究适用于适应性相关的反应规范