Coping with uncertainty: Integrating physiology, behavior, and evolutionary ecology in a changing world

Abstract

The world is rapidly changing, and is exhibiting increased variability in environmental conditions. One of the grand challenges of current biology is to understand how, and predict which species will be able to cope with uncertain environments. The goal of this symposium was to explore how integrating physiological mechanisms with behavior and evolutionary ecology can help us understand how organisms cope with uncertainty. Here, we briefly review core principles that emerged in the symposium and topics covered by the presenters. Ecological studies can benefit from considering physiological mechanisms as these mechanisms may indicate constraints and trade-offs. In addition, considering the entire phenotype in an integrated way (the phenome) may reveal how different traits may trade-off or affect each other. Finally, considering the range of phenotypic plasticity is critical in exploring how organisms may cope with uncertainty via plasticity and/or adaptive evolution. © The Author 2013. All rights reserved.