Rates and Patterns of Laboratory Adaptation in (Mostly) Insects

Abstract

Insects and other invertebrates can readily adapt to a range of environmental conditions and these include conditions used in artificial rearing. This can lead to problems when mass rearing insects and mites for release as biocontrol agents or in sterile insect control programs, and when using laboratory strains to understand field population dynamics. Laboratory adaptation experiments also help to understand potential rates of trait evolution and repeatability of evolutionary changes. Here, we review evidence for laboratory adaptation across invertebrates, contrasting different taxonomic groups and providing estimates of the rate of evolutionary change across trait classes. These estimates ..