- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Carroll co-authored the 13-page article, “Adaptive Versus Non-Adaptive Phenotypic Plasticity and the Potential for Contemporary Adaptation in New Environments,” published in April 2007 (Volume 21) in the British Ecological Society’s journal, Functional Ecology.
C. K. Ghalambor of Colorado State University served as the lead author. Other researchers contributing, in addition to Carroll, were J. K. McKay of Colorado State University and D. N. Reznick of UC Riverside.
The society, founded in 1913, published the list as part of its 100th anniversary celebrated this year. The work is the only selection in the field of evolutionary ecology. All listings are organized by subdiscipline.
Journal editor/reviewer Fernando Valladares, an ecologist in Madrid, Spain, wrote: “The capacity of organisms to accommodate their form and function to changing environments is called phenotypic plasticity, a concept not well integrated into the Neo-Darwinian synthesis but gaining increasing recognition and interest. Phenotypic plasticity is at the core of rapidly expanding areas such as epigenetics and has become a key concept in understanding species responses to global change. An implicit assumption in many studies is that a plastic phenotypic change is beneficial, i.e. increases fitness of the individual organism capable of such adjustment or change in response to the environment. However, as Ghalambor et al. remind us, plasticity can be not only positive, but neutral and even negative for fitness. The paper makes a sound contribution to the situations where plasticity is adaptive, and revises scenarios where plasticity prevents or allows evolution by directional selection. The explicit recognition of the frequent case that plastic adjustments do not lead to perfectly optimal phenotypes is one of the several merits of this revision, in addition to the brilliant explanation of when plasticity is or can be adaptive. The paper has significant limitations, e.g. in not emphasizing that what is maladaptive today could be adaptive tomorrow, but reading it remains an inspiring experience.”
Based in professor Sharon Lawler’s lab, Carroll directs the Institute for Contemporary Evolution and does research on patterns of ongoing evolution in wild and anthropogenic environments. He is well-known for his studies on evolutionary changes in soapberry bugs in response to plant introductions. He is also an expert on behavioral and evolutionary aspects of adaptation to contemporary environmental change in insects and other organisms.
Carroll is the co-editor of the book, Conservation Biology: Evolution in Action (Oxford University Press, 2008) with Charles Fox, professor of insect genetics, behavior and evolutionary ecology, University of Kentucky.
The British Ecological Society, under the banner of “Advancing Ecology and Making it Count,” publishes and disseminates high-quality ecological research in a variety of different formats, including its five world-renowned journals, two prestigious book series and informative member bulletin.