Phenotypic stasis with genetic divergence

Whether or not genetic divergence in the short-term of tens to hundreds of generations is compatible with phenotypic stasis remains a relatively unexplored problem. We evolved predominantly outcrossing, genetically diverse populations of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans under a constant and homogeneous environment for 240 generations and followed individual locomotion behavior. Although founders of lab populations show highly diverse locomotion behavior, during lab evolution, the component traits of locomotion behavior – defined as the transition rates in activity and direction – did not show divergence from the ancestral population. In contrast, transition rates’ genetic (co)variance structure showed a marked divergence from the ancestral state and differentiation among replicate populations during the final 100 generations and after most adaptation had been achieved. We observe that genetic differentiation is a transient pattern during the loss of genetic variance along phenotypic dimensions under drift during the last 100 generations of lab evolution. These results suggest that short-term stasis of locomotion behavior is maintained because of stabilizing selection, while the genetic structuring of component traits is contingent upon drift history.