Life-history traits or “fitness components”—such as age and size at maturity, fecundity and
fertility, age-specific rates of survival, and life span—are the major phenotypic determinants …

Phenotypic plasticity, the property by which living organisms express different phenotypes
depending on environmental conditions, can impact their response to environmental …

The genetic architecture of adaptive traits is of key importance to predict evolutionary
responses. Most adaptive traits are polygenic—ie, result from selection on a large number of …

Background Population genetic theory predicts that rapid adaptation is largely driven by
complex traits encoded by many loci of small effect. Because large-effect loci are quickly …

Whether populations can adapt to predicted climate change conditions, and how rapidly, are
critical questions for the management of natural systems. Experimental evolution has …

Body size is a quantitative trait that is closely associated to fitness and under the control of
both genetic and environmental factors. While developmental plasticity for this and other …

Although studies quantifying evolutionary change in response to the selective pressures that
organisms face in the wild have demonstrated that organisms can evolve rapidly, we lack a …

Abstract Theory maintains that when future environment is predictable, parents should
adjust the phenotype of their offspring to match the anticipated environment. The plausibility …

Highlights•Insects must cope with fine-scale temporal and spatial abiotic
variation.•Phenotypes integrate genetics, environment, time, and individual …

Ecological adaptation is frequently inferred by the comparison of natural populations from
different environments. Nevertheless, inference of the selective forces suffers the challenge …