Mapping phenotypes: canalization, plasticity and developmental stability

“Canalization (also known as developmental compensation) refers to the buffering of the effects of either environmental or genetic forces attempting to perturb development [111–114].”

“The terms ‘genetic canalization’ and ’environmental canalization’ are sometimes applied to describe the reduction in genetic and environmental components of phenotypic variance by stabilizing selection (Stearns et al., 1995; Debat & David, 2001).”

“More recent usage of the term canalization, also termed ‘‘auto-regulation’’ by Schmalhausen (1949), has focused on the implied aspect of constraint of phenotypic variation against the effects of genetic or environmental perturbations (Debat and David, 2001).”

“Stearns, S. C. 1989.”

“Its link to plasticity is controversial and empirical studies have produced mixed result”

“They may or may not act against nonheritable perturbations at the same time.”

“…describe different aspects of the same phenomenon: the dependency of the phenotype on the environment (e.g., Stearns 1982; Palmer 1994; Roff 1994, 1997; Ancel and Fontana 2000; Rice 2000; Rutherford 2000; De Visser et al. 2003; Proulx and Phillips 2004; see Debat and David 2001 for a discussion).”

“A somewhat different perspective is to use the comparison of patterns of covariance for fluctuating asymmetry and for variation among individuals to infer whether the same processes are contributing to developmental stability and canalization [42,175,176].”

“Phenotypic variation is central in ecology and evolution and often plays a role in adaptation, niche shift, population dynamics, and evolutionary diversification (WestEberhard 1989; Agrawal 2001; Debat & David 2001; Price et al. 2003; Pigliucci et al. 2006).”

“…biology and developmental psychology, plasticity often refers to the effects of exposure to external stimuli, experiences or environments early in life on the behaviour expressed later in life (Marler, 1997; Debat & David, 2001; Piersma & Drent, 2003; West-Eberhard, 2003; Belsky & Pluess, 2009).”

“…functions are associated with the absence of change in the mean phenotype in response to the genetic or other inputs, this perspective on buffering assigns a common origin to DS and canalization (e.g., Meiklejohn & Hartl 2002), a view that is not shared universally (e.g., Debat & David 2001).”

“, Colditz and Hine, 2016), and resilienceassociated concepts have been discussed in literature: robustness, tolerance, resistance, GxE interaction, genetic heterogeneity of environmental variance, plasticity, environmental sensitivity, canalization, (developmental) stability, and residual withinindividual phenotypic v…”

“Canalization results in stabilizing selection that preserves the phenotypic and genotypic status quo of the population (Debat & David 2001).”

“The most frequently measured parameter is fluctuating asymmetry (FA), the numerical difference of a trait between right and left side (Debat and David, 2001; Dongen, 2006; Lajus et al., 2003; Møller, 2006; Nijhout and Davidowitz, 2003).”

“For further reading on different aspects of biological robustness and canalization, a non-exhaustive list of more extensive reviews includes: Gibson and Wagner 2000; Debat and David 2001; de Visser et al. 2003; Gibson and Dworkin 2004; Flatt 2005; Wagner 2005a; Dworkin 2005a.”

“Phenotypic plasticity is a presumably adaptive modification of the phenotype in relation to the present or predicted environmental conditions (Debat and David, 2001).”

“Therefore, the spectrum of an organism’s potential phenotypic responses is made possible by the combination of its genotype and surrounding environment (Debat & David, 2001).”

“…environmental or genetic forces attempting to perturb development and Waddington’s ideas have been well developed both empirically and theoretically (Debat & David, 2001; Gibson & Wagner, 2000; Hartman, Garvik, & Hartwell, 2001; Hornstein & Shomron, 2006; Kitami & Nadeau, 2002; Rutherford, 2000;…”

“Simultaneous promotion of both plasticity and genetic canalization would result in canalized reaction norms ( Debat & David, 2001 ).”

“Selection for reduced environmental variance could result in environmental canalization, a phenomenon of long-standing interest (e.g., Waddington 1942, 1960; reviews in Scharloo 1991, Debat and David 2001, and Flatt 2005).”

“Genes responsible for genetic-canalizing effects are assumed to decrease visible additive genetic variance, whereas genes with environment-canalizing effects would decrease environmental variance (Debat and David 2001).”

“Researchers working on SDV of unicellular organisms usually speak of ‘noise control’ (Kim and Sauro 2012), whereas researchers working on multicellular organisms speak of ‘developmental buffering’ (Debat and David 2001; Patterson and Klingenberg 2007).”

“It has been contentious whether these are independent processes [4,10] or whether they are manifestations of the same biological process [6].”

“…change in response to a change in environment; canalization—the ability to produce a consistent phenotype in spite of genetic and environmental influences; and developmental stability—the buffering of random developmental errors, has generated some debate (e.g., Debat and David 2001; Flatt 2005).”

“Key words: Drag, ecomorphology, fitness, hydraulic ecology, hydrodynamic performance, mechanical constraint, morpho- logical adaptation, submerged aquatic vegetation.”

“This trend is consistent with environmental canalization Debat and David 2001, Wagner et al. 1997 for an optimum height in species that inhabit the most extreme range in salinities which is relaxed in species that inhabit intermediate ranges of salinities.”

“Ecologists often use the term ‘reaction norm’ (see Glossary) to describe a set of phenotypes produced by a single genotype under different environmental conditions (Debat and David, 2001), i.e. the reaction to an environment.”

“For a given trait, this change with environment can be continuous or discrete [37].”

“Debat and David (2001) point out that many of the terms we use in studies of both development and adaptation to environmental variation (e.g., plasticity, genotype-by-environment interaction, developmental instability) do not take into account recent advances in our understanding of underlying…”

“…a sexual signal acquires a viability-related function (e.g., as an aposematic signal), this may generate strong stabilizing selection on the signal (Debat and David 2001; Siegal and Bergman 2002), and at the same time the signal may become less costly to express because it enhances rather than…”

“A detailed discussion of this contentious topic is beyond the scope of this Commentary (for discussion, see Debat and David, 2001; Gabriel, 2005; Sommer et al., 2017; Woods, 2014).”

“It is not clear how these patterns, as well as the agreement or discrepancies among them, relate to the underlying processes of developmental buffering (i.e., canalization and developmental stability; Debat et al. 2000, 2008, 2009; Debat and David 2001; Breuker et al. 2006b).”

“Such a process of variance reduction during growth has been termed targeted growth or developmental canalization (e.g., Waddington 1942; Tanner 1963; Debat and David 2001).”

“…and S. vagrans) and by comparison with those previously described in exploratory analysis of all four species under this study and with closely related species (Ärnbäck-Christie-Linde 1907; Gaughran 1954; Fearnhead et al. 1955; Sharma 1958; Dötsch 1985, 1986; Badyaev and Foresman 2000).”

“Debat V, David P: Mapping phenotypes: canalization, plasticity and developmental stability.”

“The extent to which a (behavioural) trait is plastic or canalised depends on the species, although canalisation is often found more strongly in behaviours that are essential to survival, where there is very little margin for error (Debat and David 2001).”

“These challenges are part of the larger debate and problem of mapping genotypes to phenotypes (Debat & David, 2001; Wagner & Altenberg, 1996).”

“Environmental canalization, in contrast, occurs when genetic expression is insensitive to the environment—the same phenotype is produced regardless of environmental variation (Debat & David 2001).”

“Observed phenotypic shifts in reservoir habitats are potentially due to phenotypic plasticity as environmentally induced variation is widespread (Schlichting and Pigliucci 1998; West-Eberhard 2003).”

“…hatched tadpoles, (iv) populations located far from agricultural fields will exhibit greater induced tolerance than populations located close to agricultural fields, (v) tadpoles with induced tolerance will have higher AChE concentrations compared with noninduced tadpoles from the same population.”

“The mechanisms that regulate the phenotypic stability of any single trait are mostly maintained by the ability of individuals to express diVerent phenotypes under diVerent environmental conditions (plasticity) and buVer slight genetic abnormalities or environmental disturbance (canalization) or any random error arisin…”

“, canalization, morphological integration, modularty, and plasticity) and developmental instability [34,35].”

“…as hormonal regulation, epigenetic change, and gene expression in the context of gene regulatory networks (Pfennig & Ehrenreich, 2014) could elucidate the developmental changes that facilitate the transition from environmental induction to canalization (Debat & David, 2001; Debat et al., 2009).”

“The insensitivity of body size to temperature conditions experienced during development, together with the covariance between colour morph and body size, suggests that selection has promoted morph-specific canalization of size against environmental perturbations (Weinig, 2000; Debat & David, 2001 ).”

“An emphasis on R, VI, and Ve connects the study of developmental stress with the key quantitativegenetics concepts of phenotypic plasticity and canalization (Debat and David 2001).”

“A developmental perspective to this hypothesis is that independent acquisition of presumably nonadaptive characters may be due to recurrent processes of canalization (Zakharov, 1992; Debat and David, 2001).”

“…levels of within-line variation are better canalized than other lines, even though all traits were measured in a single environment (even though this is far from the traditional definition of canalization and has been given other names; see Debat and David, 2001, for a review of these definitions).”

“selection for reduced variance [14-16].”

“At one extreme, cues may be relatively uninformative, in which case natural selection may favor specialization with minimal sampling, or no sampling at all (Debat & David, 2001).”

“…kinds of selection and other population processes (see, among others, Tanner 1963; Lande 1979; Philipps and Arnold 1989; Gibson and Wagner 2000; Debat and David 2001; Hallgrimsson et al. 2002; Badyaev and Foresman 2004; Hallgrimsson and Hall 2005; Mitteroecker 2009; Mitteroecker et al. 2012).”

“The current observations of concomitant histological plasticity and morphological consistency within a single taxon would support the concept of ‘canalization’ first proposed by Waddington in 1942 (Debat and David 2001; Flatt 2005).”

“Several lines of evidence support the view that social behaviour in A. studiosus is, indeed, canalized in the sense that the behaviour of individuals is resistant to environmentally induced change (see review of plasticity and canalization by Debat & David 2001).”