Offspring polymorphism and bet hedging: a large-scale, phylogenetic analysis

Joshua P. Scholl; Leonardo Calle; Nick Miller; D. Lawrence Venable

doi:10.1111/ele.13522

Offspring polymorphism and bet hedging: a large-scale, phylogenetic analysis

Joshua P. Scholl, Leonardo Calle, Nick Miller, D. Lawrence Venable

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › peer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Offspring polymorphism is a reproductive strategy where individual organisms simultaneously produce offspring that differ in morphology and ecology. It occurs across the Tree of Life but is particularly common among plants, where it is termed seed (diaspore) heteromorphism. The prevalence of this strategy in unpredictably varying environments has resulted in the assumption that it serves as a bet-hedging mechanism. We found 101 examples of this strategy in southwestern North America. We provide phylogenetically informed evidence for the hypothesis that the occurrence of seed heteromorphism increases with increasing environmental variability, though this pattern was only significant for aridity, one of our two rainfall variability metrics. We provide a strong test of bet hedging for a large, taxonomically diverse set of seed heteromorphic species, lending support to the hypothesis that bet hedging is an important mechanistic driver for the evolution of seed heteromorphism.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1223-1231
Number of pages	9
Journal	Ecology letters
Volume	23
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13522
State	Published - Aug 1 2020

Keywords

Bet hedging
life history evolution
offspring polymorphism
reproductive biology
seed heteromorphism

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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10.1111/ele.13522

Cite this

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title = "Offspring polymorphism and bet hedging: a large-scale, phylogenetic analysis",

abstract = "Offspring polymorphism is a reproductive strategy where individual organisms simultaneously produce offspring that differ in morphology and ecology. It occurs across the Tree of Life but is particularly common among plants, where it is termed seed (diaspore) heteromorphism. The prevalence of this strategy in unpredictably varying environments has resulted in the assumption that it serves as a bet-hedging mechanism. We found 101 examples of this strategy in southwestern North America. We provide phylogenetically informed evidence for the hypothesis that the occurrence of seed heteromorphism increases with increasing environmental variability, though this pattern was only significant for aridity, one of our two rainfall variability metrics. We provide a strong test of bet hedging for a large, taxonomically diverse set of seed heteromorphic species, lending support to the hypothesis that bet hedging is an important mechanistic driver for the evolution of seed heteromorphism.",

keywords = "Bet hedging, life history evolution, offspring polymorphism, reproductive biology, seed heteromorphism",

author = "Scholl, {Joshua P.} and Leonardo Calle and Nick Miller and Venable, {D. Lawrence}",

note = "Funding Information: This research was supported by NSF grants DEB‐1256792 (LTREB) to DLV, DGE‐1746060 (NSF‐GRFP) to JPS, DEB‐1702050 (NSF‐DDIG) to JPS and an Arizona Native Plant Society Grant to JPS. We thank Ty Taylor and Yue Max Li for their help with data analysis and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Funding Information: This research was supported by NSF grants DEB-1256792 (LTREB) to DLV, DGE-1746060 (NSF-GRFP) to JPS, DEB-1702050 (NSF-DDIG) to JPS and an Arizona Native Plant Society Grant to JPS. We thank Ty Taylor and Yue Max Li for their help with data analysis and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS",

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doi = "10.1111/ele.13522",

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N2 - Offspring polymorphism is a reproductive strategy where individual organisms simultaneously produce offspring that differ in morphology and ecology. It occurs across the Tree of Life but is particularly common among plants, where it is termed seed (diaspore) heteromorphism. The prevalence of this strategy in unpredictably varying environments has resulted in the assumption that it serves as a bet-hedging mechanism. We found 101 examples of this strategy in southwestern North America. We provide phylogenetically informed evidence for the hypothesis that the occurrence of seed heteromorphism increases with increasing environmental variability, though this pattern was only significant for aridity, one of our two rainfall variability metrics. We provide a strong test of bet hedging for a large, taxonomically diverse set of seed heteromorphic species, lending support to the hypothesis that bet hedging is an important mechanistic driver for the evolution of seed heteromorphism.

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Offspring polymorphism and bet hedging: a large-scale, phylogenetic analysis

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Keywords

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