Abstract
An individual’s fitness cost associated with environmental change likely
depends on the rate of adaptive phenotypic plasticity, and yet our
understanding of plasticity rates in an ecological and evolutionary
context remains limited. We provide the first quantitative synthesis of
existing plasticity rate data, focusing on acclimation of temperature
tolerance in ectothermic animals, where we demonstrate applicability of
a recently proposed analytical approach. The analyses reveal
considerable variation in plasticity rates of this trait among species,
with half-times (how long it takes for the initial deviation from the
acclimated phenotype to be reduced by 50% when individuals are shifted
to a new environment) ranging from 3.7 to 770.2 h. Furthermore, rates
differ among higher taxa, being higher for amphibians and reptiles than
for crustaceans and fishes, and with insects being intermediate. We
argue that a more comprehensive understanding of phenotypic plasticity
will be attained through increased focus on the rate parameter.