evolvability

Le Rouzic A, Álvarez-Castro JM & Hansen TF 2013 The evolution of canalization and evolvability in stable fluctuating environments. Evol Biol 40:317-340.

• elevation of evolvability is not the cause of the decanalization, which instead happens as an indirect side effect of changes in allele frequencies due to shifts in the trait mean
• there will be similar canalizing selection as generated by pure stabilizing selection
• the main difference is that adaptive canalization is more easily disturbed in fluctuating environments
• if evolvability is to evolve as an adaptation to fluctuating environments this must happen by other mechanisms such as group selection or selection for favorable trait correlations