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Evolutionary biology

Perplexing effects of phenotypic plasticity

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Research on guppies provides evidence that phenotypic plasticity — an organism's ability to alter its characteristics in response to changes in the environment — can both constrain and facilitate adaptive evolution. See Letter p.372

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Figure 1: Trinidadian guppies.

Gerard Lacz/Rex/Shutterstock

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Juha Merilä is in the Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.,

    Juha Merilä

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  1. Juha Merilä
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Correspondence to Juha Merilä.

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Merilä, J. Perplexing effects of phenotypic plasticity. Nature 525, 326–327 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15214

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