The DOI matches its Crossref record; 119 of the 119 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Climate change, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity: the problem and the evidence
Open accessAbstract
Many studies have recorded phenotypic changes in natural populations and attributed them to climate change. However, controversy and uncertainty has arisen around three levels of inference in such studies. First, it has proven difficult to conclusively distinguish whether phenotypic changes are genetically based or the result of phenotypic plasticity. Second, whether or not the change is adaptive is usually assumed rather than tested. Third, inferences that climate change is the specific causal agent have rarely involved the testing – and exclusion – of other potential drivers. We here review the various ways in which the above inferences have been attempted, and evaluate the strength of support that each approach can provide. This methodological assessment sets the stage for 11 accompanying review articles that attempt comprehensive syntheses of what is currently known – and not known – about responses to climate change in a variety of taxa and in theory. Summarizing and relying on the results of these reviews, we arrive at the conclusion that evidence for genetic adaptation to climate change has been found in some systems, but is still relatively scarce. Most importantly, it is clear that more studies are needed – and these must employ better inferential methods – before general conclusions can be drawn. Overall, we hope that the present paper and special issue provide inspiration for future research and guidelines on best practices for its execution.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“and phenological shifts in a wide range of taxa in response to climate change ( 65 ).”
From Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change (2019) · cites this paper as [65]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems
Parmesan, C., & Yohe, G. (2003) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature01286 · Cited by 11,265
The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme
Gould, S. J., & Lewontin, R. C. (1979) · Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.1979.0086 · Cited by 7,770 · cited 1×
“At the end of the day, any adaptive ‘story telling’ (sensu Gould and Lewontin 1979) should be accompanied by formal hypothesis testing using the following methods.”
MethodGenetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits
(2002) · Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics · doi:10.1046/j.1439-0388.2002.00356.x · Cited by 6,176
Developmental Plasticity and Evolution
West-Eberhard, M. J. (2003) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195122343.001.0001 · Cited by 6,115
Conceptual issues in local adaptation
Kawecki, T. J., & Ebert, D. (2004) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00684.x · Cited by 3,873
Ghalambor, C. K., McKay, J., Carroll, S. P., & Reznick, D. N. (2007) · Functional Ecology · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2435.2007.01283.x · Cited by 3,752
Inbreeding effects in wild populations
Keller, L. F. (2002) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/s0169-5347(02)02489-8 · Cited by 3,375
Foll, M., & Gaggiotti, O. E. (2008) · Genetics · doi:10.1534/genetics.108.092221 · Cited by 2,748
The Strength of Phenotypic Selection in Natural Populations
Kingsolver, J. G., Hoekstra, H. E., Hoekstra, J. M., Berrigan, D. A., VIGNIERI, S. N., Hill, C. E., Hoang, A., Gibert, P., & Beerli, P. (2001) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/319193 · Cited by 1,843
Natural selection and random genetic drift in phenotypic evolution
Lande, R. (1976) · Evolution · doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.1976.tb00911.x · Cited by 1,828
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change
Díaz, S., Settele, J., Brondízio, E. S., Ngo, H. T., Agard, J., Arneth, A., Balvanera, P., Brauman, K. A., Butchart, S. H. M., Chan, K. M. A., et al. (2019) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aax3100 · Cited by 2,926
The broad footprint of climate change from genes to biomes to people
Scheffers, B. R., Meester, L. D., Bridge, T. C. L., Hoffmann, A. A., Pandolfi, J. M., Corlett, R. T., Butchart, S. H. M., Pearce‐Kelly, P., Kovacs, K. M., Dudgeon, D. L., et al. (2016) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aaf7671 · Cited by 1,478
Improving the forecast for biodiversity under climate change
Urban, M. C., Bocedi, G., Hendry, A. P., Mihoub, J., Pe’er, G., Singer, A., Bridle, J. R., Crozier, L. G., Meester, L. D., Godsoe, W., et al. (2016) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aad8466 · Cited by 1,313
Self-citationWeiskopf, S. R., Rubenstein, M. A., Crozier, L. G., Gaichas, S., Griffis, R., Halofsky, J. E., Hyde, K. J. W., Morelli, T. L., Morisette, J. T., Muñoz, R. C., et al. (2020) · Science of The Total Environment · doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137782 · Cited by 1,262
Behavioral responses to changing environments
Wong, B. B. M., & Candolin, U. (2015) · Behavioral Ecology · doi:10.1093/beheco/aru183 · Cited by 1,065
Metadata
- Authors
- Merilä, J., & Hendry, A. P.
- Affiliations
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- McGill University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Merilä, Juha
- Venue
- Evolutionary Applications
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-01
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-14
- ISSN
- 1752-4563 (ISSN-L)
- 1752-4571
- PMC
- PMC3894893
- OpenAlex
- W2007545512
- Cited by
- 1,369
- References
- 119
- Citations by year
- 2026: 61 · 2025: 126 · 2024: 84 · 2023: 96 · 2022: 163 · 2021: 114 · 2020: 143 · 2019: 133 · 2018: 104 · 2017: 130 · 2016: 105 · 2015: 70 · 2014: 29
- FWCI
- 114.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Evolutionary Applications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Academy of Finland (250435, 265211, 263722)
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Physiological and biochemical adaptations
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Keywords
- climate change, phenotypic plasticity, genetic adaptation, adaptive evolution, natural selection, causal inference, alternative explanations, inference methods
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
