1987/01/01 by Jeanine M. Refsnider, Fredric J. Janzen, Maria Isabel Goikoetxea · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Animal Behavior and Reproduction #Avian ecology and behavior #Basque language and culture studies #Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism #Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies #Turtle Biology and Conservation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/jhered/esv053
openalex publication_date 1987/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/28
Organisms become adapted to their environment by evolving through natural selection, a process that generally transpires over many generations. Currently, anthropogenically driven environmental changes are occurring orders of magnitude faster than they did prior to human influence, which could potentially outpace the ability of some organisms to adapt. Here, we focus on traits associated with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), a classic polyphenism, in a model turtle species to address the evolutionary potential of species with TSD to respond to rapid climate change. We show, first, that sex-ratio outcomes in species with TSD are sensitive to climatic variation. We then identify the evolutionary potential, in terms of heritability, of TSD and quantify the evolutionary potential of 3 key traits involved in TSD: pivotal temperature, maternal nest-site choice, and nesting phenology. We find that these traits display different patterns of adaptive potential: pivotal temperature exhibits moderate heritable variation, whereas nest-site choice and nesting phenology, with considerable phenotypic plasticity, have only modest evolutionary potential to alter sex ratios. Therefore, the most likely response of species with TSD to anthropogenically induced climate change may be a combination of microevolution in thermal sensitivity of the sex-determining pathway and of plasticity in maternal nesting behavior.