Explaining the origins of novel traits is central to evolutionary biology. Longstanding theory
suggests that developmental plasticity, the ability of an individual to modify its development …

Adaptive phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to cope with environmental variability, and
yet, despite its adaptive significance, phenotypic plasticity is neither ubiquitous nor infinite. In …

The origin of novel traits is what draws many to evolutionary biology, yet our understanding
of the mechanisms that underlie the genesis of novelty remains limited. Here I review …

The generation of variation is paramount for the action of natural selection. Although
biologists are now moving beyond the idea that random mutation provides the sole source of …

In the past decade, there has been a resurgent interest in whether and how phenotypic
plasticity might impact evolutionary processes. Of fundamental importance is how the …

Adaptive phenotypic plasticity, the ability of a genotype to develop a phenotype appropriate
to the local environment, allows organisms to cope with environmental variation and has …

Phenotypic plasticity—the ability of an individual organism to change its phenotype in direct
response to variation in its environment—has long fascinated and perplexed biologists …

Aside from its selective role in filtering inter‐individual variation during evolution by natural
selection, the environment also plays an instructive role in producing variation during …

The concept of genetic accommodation remains controversial, in part because it remains
unclear whether evolution by genetic accommodation forces a revolution, or merely a shift in …

Environmentally induced phenotypes have been proposed to initiate and bias adaptive
evolutionary change toward particular directions. The potential for this to happen depends in …