Life history traits of Potamopyrgus antipodarum in variable salinity and temperature

Organisms exposed to major environmental change face atypical and stressful conditions across multiple environmental variables, yet studies of phenotypically plastic responses historically focus on one environmental variable at a time. Evaluating multivariate plasticity of traits across different, simultaneously varying environmental variables provides new insights into the fate of populations amidst environmental changes. We aimed to investigate plasticity in multivariate environments by 1) examining the individual and joint effects of two environmental variables and 2) calculating genotype-by-environment interactions and genetic correlations of character states to investigate potential evolutionary constraints.
We performed a lab controlled-environment experiment under a full factorial design of low and high temperatures and salinities with multiple maternal lineages of a parthenogenetic freshwater snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum. Our results revealed that predictions of plastic trait..., ,

暴露于重大环境变化的生物，会在多个环境变量维度下遭遇非典型且具有胁迫性的环境条件，但过往关于表型塑性（phenotypic plasticity）响应的研究往往仅单次聚焦单一环境变量。针对不同且同步变化的环境变量开展性状多变量塑性的评估，可为解析环境变化背景下种群的存续命运提供全新视角。本研究旨在探究多变量环境下的表型塑性，具体通过两项研究内容实现：其一，剖析两种环境变量的单独效应与联合效应；其二，计算基因型-环境互作（genotype-by-environment interaction）以及性状状态的遗传相关性，以探究潜在的进化约束。
本研究以多支母系谱系的孤雌生殖淡水螺（Potamopyrgus antipodarum）为实验材料，采用温度与盐度各设高低两个水平的全因子实验设计，在实验室可控环境中开展了相关实验。本研究结果显示，关于塑性性状的预测……