5 Concluding remarks
Although there is a growing literature assessing hypotheses related to the Baldwin effect, Plasticity-First hypothesis, and the Bogert effect[5,10,21,111], no papers have systematically compared and contrasted, theoretically or experimentally, how these expectations differ across the three parameters of environmental change (rate of change, variation, autocorrelation). Here we pose a framework yielding testable hypotheses to encourage both experimental and theoretical research that takes into account simultaneous variation in plasticity and genetics in response to changing environments.
There are increasing reports of phenotypic and genotypic data from natural populations exposed to changing environmental regimes[41,112,113]. They allow direct assessment of genetic and plastic adaptive processes over time and under different environmental scenarios. Therefore, the time is ripe to reassess our understanding of the relative roles of phenotypic evolution by selection and plasticity. Here, we have introduced an integrative framework that delineates null hypotheses for when and how much plasticity might be employed for adaptive evolution and persistence under realistic types of environmental change. With more explicit theories and field measurements of how the rate of change, variability, and temporal autocorrelation of the environment impact the mechanisms of evolutionary responses, we may reach a deeper understanding of species responses in the Anthropocene.