Right phenotype, wrong place: predator-induced plasticity is costly in a mismatched environment

Right pace, wrong place.

Left is right, right is wrong.

correspondence correspondence Left is right, right is wrong T he cover illustration of the August 2009 issue of EMBO reports, although aesthetically pleasing, is unfortunately erroneous and could come as a shock to researchers in the chromatin field. Canonical nucleosomes are indeed left-handed, such as the nucleosomes in the left 'column' of chro-matin fibres on the cover. However, in the righ...

Is general practice in the wrong PLACE?

In 1958 John Lykoudis, a dyspeptic smalltown Greek doctor, cured himself with antibiotics. Convinced of infective cause he prescribed his multiple antibiotic formulation ‘Elgaco’ to 30 000 patients with ulcer.1 Barry Marshall, credited with discovering the bacterial cause for ulcers, acknowledges Lykoudis.1 The JAMA considered that the association between acid and ulcer was proof of causation a...

Predator-induced phenotypic plasticity in metabolism and rate of growth: rapid adaptation to a novel environment.

Novel environments often impose directional selection for a new phenotypic optimum. Novel environments, however, can also change the distribution of phenotypes exposed to selection by inducing phenotypic plasticity. Plasticity can produce phenotypes that either align with or oppose the direction of selection. When plasticity and selection are parallel, plasticity is considered adaptive because ...

Mismatched anti-predator behavioral responses in predator-naïve larval anurans

Organisms are adept at altering behaviors to balance the tradeoff between foraging and predation risk in spatially and temporally shifting predator environments. In order to optimize this tradeoff, prey need to be able to display an appropriate response based on degree of predation risk. To be most beneficial in the earliest life stages in which many prey are vulnerable to predation, innate ant...