Adaptive radiation along genetic lines of least resistance

Abstract

Are measurements of quantitative genetic variation useful for predicting long-term adaptive evolution? To answer this question. I focus on g(max), the multivariate direction of greatest additive genetic variance within populations. Original data on threespine sticklebacks, together with published genetic measurements from other vertebrates, show that morphological differentiation between species has been biased in the direction of g(max) for at least four million years, despite evidence that natural selection is the cause of differentiation. This bias toward the direction of evolution tends to decay with time. Rate of morphological divergence between species is inversely proportional to θ, the angle between the direction of divergence and the direction of greatest genetic variation. The direction of greatest phenotypic variance is not identical with g(max), but for these data is nearly as successful at predicting the direction of species divergence. I interpret the findings to mean that genetic variances and covariances constrain adaptive change in quantitative trails for reasonably long spans of time. An alternative hypothesis, however, cannot be ruled out: that morphological differentiation is biased in the direction g(max) because divergence and g(max) are both shaped by the same natural selection pressures. Either way, the results reveal that adaptive differentiation occurs principally along 'genetic lines of least resistance'.