Transgenerational plasticity research: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract Transgenerational plasticity (TGP) is a type of non‐genetic inheritance whereby one generation's environment affects a subsequent generation's phenotype. It can influence the persistence of organisms in stressful climatic conditions through allowing rapid phenotypic change. TGP has been proposed to have the potential to alter an organism's response to selective forces or buffer their effects, yet the interaction of these two processes is neither well understood nor often accounted for via appropriate experimental design. The rapid expansion of TGP research in recent years has led to a lack of clarity surrounding terminology for different phenomena, sometimes undermining the interpretation of research. In this review, we provide an overview of the terminology used across fields and clarify distinctions between terms to aid research dissemination. We then consider how recent TGP research has implemented a range of study designs to attempt to disentangle evidence of TGP from selection and synthesise the emerging patterns from the experimental climate change literature. Placing TGP concepts and methodology clearly within our current understanding of other important processes such as parental effects and genetic inheritance, we demonstrate how quantitative genetics analyses may allow us to integrate our understanding of multiple parallel processes. Through implementing our suggestions, researchers can enable greater cohesion across studies of TGP that, in turn, facilitate progression in our understanding of the role of TGP in organismal evolution and responses to climate change. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.