Phenotypic plasticity: From microevolution to macroevolution

Abstract

This chapter starts with a short history of the concept of phenotypic plasticity (from the seventeenth century to present) in order to distinguish two distinct conceptions of plasticity: one more dynamic (or Aristotelian) according to which the notion has been described as a property inherent to life whose very organization depends upon it, and an other conception, more passive, according to which “plasticity“ means the capacity to express different phenotypes for a single genotype depending on environmental conditions. The chapter shows then how Darwinian theories have fi rst favored the second conception, before the emergence of a renewed interest for the fi rst one, which plays the role of an explanans, while the second conception would rather be an explanandum. In so doing, the chapter describes in depth the role of the concept in micro- and macroevolution study.