Costs and constraints in the evolution of plasticity
Why are some species flexible in their behavior and development, while others are more fixed or specialized (e.g., this review)? What does this mean for survival in novel environments (e.g., this study)? We use butterflies (and sometimes other systems) to test hypotheses about variation in costs of plasticity, and variation in selection on plasticity. For instance, forms of plasticity like learning may be more likely to tradeoff with reproduction (e.g., this study in cabbage whites) than switch-like forms of plasticity, that are limited by the efficacy of selection (e.g., this study in horned beetles). For forms of plasticity that are costly, availability of resources may set limits on allocation to both plasticity (e.g., brain size) and reproduction.