Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Animals often experience environmental fluctuations along multiple axes. Phenotypic plasticity is ubiquitous and represents the most rapid adaptive mechanism that allows individuals to adjust their phenotype to face rapid environmental changes. Yet, individuals within a population often differ in their capacity to express plastic traits. Phenotypic integration refers to the study of complex patterns of covariations among functional traits and its strength could be a major constraint for the evolution of plasticity. With increasing human-induced environmental changes, it is essential to understand how constraints on plasticity prevent the expression of optimal traits. My objectives are to study how environmental predictability and harshness shape phenotypic integration of traits, determine the relationship between phenotypic plasticity and phenotypic integration, and characterize the shape and strength of selection acting on plasticity and phenotypic integration. We will experimentally buffer resource availability with supplemental feeding in a longitudinal study of eastern chipmunks and manipulate a gradient of environmental predictability and harshness in semi-natural conditions on wood frogs throughout metamorphosis. For the chipmunks, a project will investigate traits correlations by comparing naturally fluctuating sites to a site where food availability is experimentally maintained. The relationship with plasticity will also be studied along with the relationship with fitness. For the frogs, a project will experimentally manipulate water depth and temperature to see how traits correlations vary. A second project will investigate how trait integration and plasticity covary by testing tadpoles in control and stressful conditions (simulated depredation). Finally, we will study how traits integration and plasticity affect the survival probability during metamorphosis by comparing high density/presence of predator treatments to a control treatment. Context-dependent constraints on plasticity and phenotypic integration are increasingly recognized as a central aspect of research in behavioural ecology, evolutionary biology, and conservation biology. Consequently, my research program will provide an ideal environment for training students and provide insights about how environmental variation affect the adaptive potential of populations, which is key to assess the vulnerability of populations to climate change.