Hi all
I have noticed in these examples of so called "rapid evolution" there lacks the differentiation between three possible forms of adaptation. One, behavioral plasticity, where the organism expresses traits in response to environmental cues. Two, short term selection, where susceptible types are eliminated, leaving only types that have suitable traits. And three, long term adaptation, where the traits become fixed in the population, via inheritance. In a so-called locally adapted population, one would need to tease out the contribution of these factors and ascertain whether an adaptation is short-term or long-term, and whether that involves trade-offs in affecting short and long term survival. This is an example of this type of thinking:

> The role phenotypic plasticity might play in adaptation to the ongoing climate changes is unclear. Plasticity allows for the production of a diversity of intra-generational responses, whose inter-generational evolutionary consequences are difficult to predict. In this article, we review theory and empirical studies addressing this question in insects by considering three scenarios. The first scenario corresponds to adaptive plasticity that should lead to slow or no evolution. The second scenario is the case of non-adaptive phenotypic plasticity to new environmental conditions that should lead either to extinction or, on the contrary, to rapid evolutionary change. The third scenario deals with how plasticity alters the variance selection acts upon. These scenarios are then discussed by highlighting examples of empirical studies on insects. We conclude that more studies are needed to better understand the relationship between phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary processes in insects.

Gibert, P., Debat, V., & Ghalambor, C. K. (2019). Phenotypic plasticity, global change, and the speed of adaptive evolution. Current opinion in insect science.

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