The ecology and evolution of inducible defenses in the freshwater snail Helisoma trivolvis

摘要: The effects of environmental variation on the phenotypes expressed by organisms have gradually gained interest in biology. This has been sparked realization that environment-dependent phenotypic expression (i.e. phenotype plasticity) can improve an organism's fitness when different environments are encountered. challenge for researchers is to determine importance plasticity various fields A major goal community ecology understand predator-prey interactions within natural communities. Recently, ecologists focused their attention towards inducible defenses prey with not simply passive participants but instead express a variety defenses. dissertation explores and evolution using freshwater snails predators as model system. My specific objectives were identify adaptive significance induced responses against predators, explore development understanding defenses, address consequences spatial temporal predation risk species. Snails extremely flexible ability respond predator environments. It was evident each my experiments able alter unique suite traits integrate contained multiple Moreover, trade-offs resulting from internal resource competition among appear be underlying mechanism I also found come at cost reduced growth, delayed reproduction, or fecundity. However, these costs dependent identity predator. By incorporating developmental perspective, document wide windows formation narrow reversal lag time associated some limit benefits defense. Lastly, early constrain future dramatic impacts fitness.