Abstract
This chapter focuses on two themes that reveal the importance of understanding individuals: (1) the concept of phenotypic plasticity, or the capacity for a given genotype to produce different phenotypes in response to different environments and (2) the concepts of complexity and integration, or how suites of interacting traits across levels of organization respond to, and evolve in response to, environmental variation. It first provides a brief history of progress toward an integrative organismal biology. The chapter then reviews why the concepts of plasticity, complexity, and integration have such unifying power. Finally, the chapter ends with a case study of how a focus on understanding mechanisms within individuals can influence biology across scales.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Integrative Organismal Biology |
Publisher | Wiley-Blackwell |
Pages | 1-21 |
Number of pages | 21 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781118398814 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781118398784 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 16 2015 |
Keywords
- Complexity
- Integration
- Integrative organismal biology
- Phenotypes
- Phenotypic plasticity