UCLA

Individuals vary phenotypically. Phenotypic variation can emerge because of bet-hedging, micro-evolutionary responses, and because of phenotypic plasticity, an important mechanism by which individuals can cope with environmental change. Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of an individual to respond to environmental variation, can influence demographic parameters (e.g., birth and death rates) that influence population dynamics. I used a population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) as a study system to explore the effect of individual variation due to phenotypically plastic responses on population dynamics. First, I used linear mixed effects models to examine and quantify the plastic responses in a set of morphological, life-history and social traits in response to climatic and social variation. Results showed that individuals have the ability to respond to environmental variation by expressing different phenotypes, and that individuals differ in the nature of their plastic responses. Second, I developed an Integral Projection Model to evaluate the trait-mediated response to environmental variation. Results indicated that variation in survival and reproduction are the main drivers of fluctuation in the population growth rate, and that winter temperature, but not spring temperature and bare ground date, are important environmental drivers of population fluctuations. Furthermore, although variation in a key morphological trait, body mass, does not explain significant variation in population growth rate, it plays an important role in mediating the individuals’ response to the environment. Finally, I developed an Individual Based Model, to incorporate individual differences in the rate at which animals gained mass seasonally, and evaluated the effect of such individual heterogeneity for population persistence. Results indicated that the proportion of individuals in the population that engaged in compensatory growth influenced population dynamics, and the cost of expressing such compensatory responses had a strong effect on population dynamics. If growth rate plasticity varies among-individuals, the population can afford the cost of plasticity; otherwise, plasticity increases the time to population extinction. These findings emphasize the importance of phenotypic plasticity as a mechanism shaping individual variation in a population, and as an important response of a species’ adaptation to environmental change.