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Título: Transgenerational plasticity in Daphnia and Callosobruchus: insights into mechanisms and evolutionary implications across model systems. Resumen: Natural selection shapes phenotypic diversity within and among populations, and can result in genetic changes. Traditionally, a genocentric point of view has dominated the way that phenotypic variation has been considered. Phenotypes have been seen as the combination of genetic plus environmental influences, and for most part of the last century, only influences due to variation in DNA sequence were thought to transmit information across generations. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that this picture is not complete. From the phenomenon of phenotypic plasticity, when a given genotype can express different phenotypes depending on environmental conditions, to parental effects, when an influence on the offspring phenotype is genetically determined in the parent but not genetically transmitted, to several mechanisms of non-genetic inheritance that are implicated in gene regulation, it is obvious that a more diverse array of factors, mechanisms and implications of cross-generational hereditary information transmission need to be considered in evolutionary biology. My thesis will focus on some of these aspects of non-genetic inheritance. Using two tractable model systems, an insect and a crustacean, I will establish the existence of transgenerational effects (effects on the phenotype of descendants that are above and beyond those strictly determined by DNA sequence), and will further explore their evolutionary implications, including their effects on individual fitness and their role in adaptation under rapid environmental change. In addition, I will study the mechanisms underlying these transgenerational effects, focusing on those due to epigenetic regulation of gene expression, and those in the form of maternal and paternal effects.

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