Abstract
Theoretical models of plant seed banks and common sense suggest that stores of dormant propagules must slow down the rate of genetic change1,2 because they sequester a substantial fraction of the gene pool from the influence of microevolutionary processes in each generation. The magnitude of the effect must represent a balance between the extent of selection and the fraction of the dormant pool that returns to the active population in each generation (and the other microevolutionary processes of migration, drift and mutation). For most populations, in which to observe the action of selection is difficult in itself, detecting the added influence of a dormant propagule pool will be more difficult still. Here we report the effect of hatching of diapausing eggs from lake sediments on the rate of phenotypic change in two populations of the freshwater copepod, Diaptomus sanguineus. When the input of new eggs to the sediments was eliminated by a brief but intense two-year appearance of predators, the role of dormant stages in slowing evolution was clearly seen.
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Hairston Jr, N., De Stasio Jr, B. Rate of evolution slowed by a dormant propagule pool. Nature 336, 239–242 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/336239a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/336239a0
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