Anne Duputié

Phenotypic plasticity (i.e. the ability of a given genotype to express different phenotypes across years or locations) is often seen as an alternative to microevolution for slowly-evolving species to cope with climate change. However, whether phenotypic plasticity indeed leads to larger ecological niches or to wider geographic ranges is unclear. To address this issue, we conducted a virtual experiment: using the model Phenofit, we artificially removed the inter-annual and/or inter-location plasticity in three tree species. We showed that phenotypic plasticity is not always adaptive; and when it is, it mostly acts in a very marginal area of the distribution (and of the ecological niche).