Organisms often exhibit phenotypic plasticity in multiple traits in response to impending environmental change. Multiple traits phenotypic plasticity is complex syndrome brought on by causal relations in ecological and physiological context. Larvae of the salamander Hynobius retardatus exhibit inducible phenotypic plasticity of two traits, when at risk of predation by dragonfly larvae. One indu...

The origin of novel communication systems has long been an evolutionary puzzle because requires interdependent signals and responses. Either component is not useful in isolation. Previous work shown that may arise when pre-existing traits are co-opted for a function. However, research on developmental plasticity suggests we benefit from considering how facilitates the diversification systems. I...

eat’, both in terms of portions and composition. When we think of this axiom, we conjure visions of ample food portions, rich in energy, high in fat, and associated with persons of equally ample body size proportions and body fat composition. However, these relationships are more complex than they may appear at first glance. The physical, physiological and behavioural manifestation of the compl...

Questions on possible relationship between phenotypic plasticity and evolvability, as well as that between robustness and evolution have been addressed over decades in the field of evolution-development. By introducing an evolutionary stability assumption on the distribution of phenotype and genotype, we establish quantitative relationships on plasticity, phenotypic fluctuations, and evolvabili...

Early developmental variables engender behavioral and neural variation, especially in species in which embryonic environment determines gonadal sex. In the leopard gecko, Eublepharis macularius, the incubation temperature of the egg (IncT) determines gonadal sex. Moreover, IncT affects the sexual differentiation of the individual and, consequently, within-sex variation. Individuals hatched from...

The claim that phenotypic plasticity speeds up evolution towards a target phenotype is a recent incarnation of the Baldwin effect. To differentiate this theory from earlier interpretations of Baldwin's ideas, we name it the Baldwin expediting effect. Models that demonstrate this effect assume an extreme fitness scenario which bestows high fitness upon a single optimal phenotype and treats all o...

In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), stroma-resident and tumour-infiltrating macrophages may facilitate an immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME) hamper immunotherapeutic responses. Analysis of tumour-associated macrophage (TAM) plasticity in NSCLC is largely lacking. We established a novel, multi-marker, dual analysis approach for assessing monocyte-derived (M?) polarisation M1/M2 p...