Noisy information about the environment: A source of individual differences within and across generations
- 1Utrecht University
Abstract
Despite sharing the same genes and the same environment, individuals often develop substantial phenotypic differences. While this pattern has been documented across diverse species and traits, the processes giving rise to this 'stochastic' or non-shared environmental variation remain unclear. Recent mathematical models of development in which phenotypes are gradually constructed may offer some clues. These models show that stochastic sampling of imperfect environmental cues can generate striking variation in developmental trajectories and adult phenotypes. At the population level, such imperfect cues produce increasing stability of individual differences across ontogeny (e.g. animal personality) and patterned distributions of mature phenotypes (e.g. normal or skewed) that resemble those observed in real organisms. Our paper synthesizes existing models in which stochastic phenotypic variation arises solely as a by-product of mechanisms missing their phenotypic targets because of imperfect cues. We then link these models to related, but independent, mathematical theory exploring the environmental conditions under which stochastic phenotypic variation is favoured by natural selection. Our integration shows that stochastic sampling is often favoured over classic bet-hedging strategies involving non-plastic generalist or specialist strategies. Our findings provide new directions of research on stochastic sampling as a mechanism for adaptive stochastic variation within and across generations.
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BibTeX
@misc{walasek2026noisy,
title = {{Noisy information about the environment: A source of individual differences within and across generations}},
author = {N. Walasek and M. Bruijning and K. Panchanathan and W. Frankenhuis},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.64898/2026.05.15.725332},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.15.725332v2},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Noisy information about the environment: A source of individual differences within and across generations
AU - N. Walasek
AU - M. Bruijning
AU - K. Panchanathan
AU - W. Frankenhuis
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/15
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.05.15.725332
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.15.725332v2
AB - Despite sharing the same genes and the same environment, individuals often develop substantial phenotypic differences. While this pattern has been documented across diverse species and traits, the processes giving rise to this 'stochastic' or non-shared environmental variation remain unclear. Recent mathematical models of development in which phenotypes are gradually constructed may offer some clues. These models show that stochastic sampling of imperfect environmental cues can generate striking variation in developmental trajectories and adult phenotypes. At the population level, such imperfect cues produce increasing stability of individual differences across ontogeny (e.g. animal personality) and patterned distributions of mature phenotypes (e.g. normal or skewed) that resemble those observed in real organisms. Our paper synthesizes existing models in which stochastic phenotypic variation arises solely as a by-product of mechanisms missing their phenotypic targets because of imperfect cues. We then link these models to related, but independent, mathematical theory exploring the environmental conditions under which stochastic phenotypic variation is favoured by natural selection. Our integration shows that stochastic sampling is often favoured over classic bet-hedging strategies involving non-plastic generalist or specialist strategies. Our findings provide new directions of research on stochastic sampling as a mechanism for adaptive stochastic variation within and across generations.
ER -