BIOL 302 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Phenotypic Plasticity, Red Cabbage, Acer Saccharum
Document Summary
Bio302 lecture 9 (sept 29th): adaptation of variable environments. The world is a variable place: variable in water soil, rocks, tree cover, secondary chemical defence of trees influencing organisms, even the turning of the earth is influential, variation also caused by biotic pressures. Variation is a relative measure: variation over space: birds, variation over time: trees, restricted in time and space: How can a single organism cope with so much variation: one of the ways is phenotypic plasticity. Phenotypic plasticity ability of a single genotype to create more than one phenotype. Includes behaviour, physiology, life history, structural defense, appearance. Can be reversible or irreversible: ex. Behaviours (responding to cues), could be reversible on longer time scale(sugar maple losing leaves and then growing back), developmental plasticity (ex. Desert locus green vs brown depending on over crowdedness ) Adaptive pp: matching optimal phenotype to the environment to maximize fitness, requires reliable cues, ex.
