Figure 1.

The schemes of two contrasting hypotheses regarding the role of phenotypic plasticity during evolution of different ecotypes.

The heterogeneity in plant color symbolizes here the degree of plasticity at different stages, whereas brown and green backgrounds indicate an ancestral and a derived niche, respectively. Other aspects, for example, the amount of genetic variation in the population, its size, or the temporal and spatial environmental heterogeneity, are not taken into account in these simplified, hypothetical scenarios.

(a) Pre‐existing plasticity in an ancestral population (e.g., in a heterogeneous environment) facilitates the colonization of new habitats. The phenotype is ultimately refined in the newly occupied habitat, where plasticity could be lost over time, due to genetic assimilation.

(b) The ancestral population bears little plasticity, which evolves in response to a newly colonized environment. This scenario has been referred to as “plasticity‐led evolution” (Levis & Pfennig, 2016; Schwander & Leimar, 2011) or Baldwin effect (Healy & Schulte, 2015).