How will complex life cycles respond to increasing environmental variability?

Authors

Winsor H Lowe

Published in

Trends in ecology & evolution. Sep 16, 2026. Epub Sep 16, 2026.

Abstract

In complex life cycles that include a transition from aquatic to terrestrial habitat, life stages experience very different effects of environmental variability (e.g., precipitation vs. temperature). But stages do not evolve independently, constraining adaptive responses to stage-specific effects. Faced with these constraints, species often shift the timing of metamorphosis to minimize time in the stage-and habitat-experiencing the greatest fitness costs. Currently, however, we have limited understanding of how such life-cycle shifts affect phenotypic evolution within stages, fitness trade-offs across stages, and population demography. Resolving these effects will inform how many animals respond to climate change, but requires deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of phenotypic, developmental, and fitness trade-offs across complex aquatic/terrestrial life cycles.

PMID:
42749539
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 17 Sep 2026.

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