Developmental plasticity has been proposed to facilitate phenotypic diversification in plants and animals, but the macroevolutionary potential of plastic traits remains to be objectively tested. We studied the evolution of feeding structures in a group of 90 nematodes, including Caenorhabditis elegans, some species of which have evolved a mouthpart polyphenism, moveable teeth, and predatory fee...

The endothelial lining of the vasculature is exposed to a large variety of biochemical and hemodynamic stimuli with different gradients throughout the vascular network. Adequate adaptation requires endothelial cells to be highly plastic, which is reflected by the remarkable heterogeneity of endothelial cells in tissues and organs. Hemodynamic forces such as fluid shear stress and cyclic strain ...

In many organisms, phenotype and fitness are strongly influenced by both current environmental factors maternal effects. The low genetic variation, high phenotypic plasticity, telescoping generations seen in aphids permit us to investigate the relative importance potential interaction of environments on phenotype. Although past studies have identified an influence host plant offspring reproduct...

Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to improve the match between their phenotype and heterogeneous environments. Theoretical models have argued that costs of maintaining sensory response machinery necessary for adaptive phenotypic are important determinants evolution plasticity. Despite recurrent arguments invoking putative metabolic associated with maintenance cellular machinery, no studies...

context the current study aimed to review research articles concerning cortical representational plasticity following the manipulations of inputs. evidence acquisition this review article compromised previous studies in pubmed, google scholar and scientific information databases according to the keywords since 1988. results ca1 neurons depolarization paired with ca3 presynaptic input result in ...

Phenotypic plasticity and its evolution may help evolutionary rescue in a novel and stressful environment, especially if environmental novelty reveals cryptic genetic variation that enables the evolution of increased plasticity. However, the environmental stochasticity ubiquitous in natural systems may alter these predictions, because high plasticity may amplify phenotype-environment mismatches...

The etiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains elusive. The "amyloid" hypothesis states that toxic action of accumulated β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) on synaptic function causes AD cognitive decline. This hypothesis is supported by analysis of familial AD (FAD)-based transgenic mouse models, where altered amyloid precursor protein (APP) processing leads to Aβ accumulation correlating with hippocamp...

Many phenotypic traits show plasticity but behaviour is often considered the 'most plastic' aspect of phenotype as it is likely to show the quickest response to temporal changes in conditions or 'situation'. However, it has also been noted that constraints on sensory acuity, cognitive structure and physiological capacities place limits on behavioural plasticity. Such limits to plasticity may ge...

It is generally accepted that taxa exhibit genetic variation in phenotypic plasticity, but many questions remain unanswered about how divergent plastic responses evolve under dissimilar ecological conditions. Hormones are signaling molecules that act as proximate mediators of phenotype expression by regulating a variety of cellular, physiological, and behavioral responses. Hormones not only cha...

The plasticity of an organism's phenotype may vary spatially and temporally, and across levels of physiological organisation. Given the adaptive value of plasticity in heterogeneous environments, it might be expected that it will be expressed most in a phenotype's most significant adaptive suites; at high latitudes, one of these is low temperature adaptation. This study examines the phenotypic ...