Benefits and costs of aphid phenological bet-hedging strategies

Abstract

Intended readership I am looking for a host institute to research bet-hedging strategies in the seasonal reproductive mode switches of aphids. The intended methods leave room for collaborative side-projects beyond the study question (e.g. molecular control of photoperiodism, or sharing aphid lines from throughout Europe), so this article might be of interest to anyone working with aphids. In addition, I would be happy to receive feedback from experts in bet-hedging theory, phenotypic plasticity and photoperiodism. Summary Global change causes both mean temperature and temperature variability to increase. Organisms can cope with predictable change in means, but increasing variability is less tractable. One strategy to increase survival chances in unpredictable environments is diversified bet-hedging, i.e. spreading the risk by variation in phenotype expression. Despite being considered a general mechanism, definite evidence for bet-hedging is scarce, as it requires both the demonstration that phenotypic variance correlates with environmental variability, and that it maximizes fitness.