Dissecting the dynamics of epigenetic changes in phenotype-structured populations exposed to fluctuating environments

T Lorenzi; RH Chisholm; L Desvillettes; BD Hughes

Journal article

Dissecting the dynamics of epigenetic changes in phenotype-structured populations exposed to fluctuating environments

T Lorenzi, RH Chisholm, L Desvillettes, BD Hughes

Journal of Theoretical Biology | Published : 2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2015.08.031

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Abstract

An enduring puzzle in evolutionary biology is to understand how individuals and populations adapt to fluctuating environments. Here we present an integro-differential model of adaptive dynamics in a phenotype-structured population whose fitness landscape evolves in time due to periodic environmental oscillations. The analytical tractability of our model allows for a systematic investigation of the relative contributions of heritable variations in gene expression, environmental changes and natural selection as drivers of phenotypic adaptation. We show that environmental fluctuations can induce the population to enter an unstable and fluctuation-driven epigenetic state. We demonstrate that thi..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Rebecca Chisholm Author

Barry Hughes Author

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Grants

Awarded by Fondation Mathématique Jacques Hadamard

Funding Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the French National Research Agency through the "ANR blanche" project Kibord [ANR-13-BS01-0004] and by the Australian Research Council [DP11 0100795 and DP140100339]. T.L. was also supported by the Hadamard Mathematics Labex, backed by the Fondation Mathematique Jacques Hadamard, through a grant overseen by the French National Research Agency [ANR-11-LABX-0056-LMH].