Discussion
Using resurrection ecology, we
provide unique evidence that changes in predation pressure can drive
rapid evolution of metabolomes and their plasticity in a natural prey
population. The high-fish subpopulation evolved the strongest
metabolomic response to predation risk thereby matching the changes in
fish predation pressure across periods and the previously documented
adaptive changes in life history, morphology and behaviour (Stokset al. 2016). Key findings about the interplay of plasticity and
evolution were (i) that ancestral plasticity and evolution contributed
nearly equally in driving total metabolomic changes through time with
the evolution of plasticity being the larger evolutionary component,
(ii) and that the ancestral plasticity in the metabolome covaried
positively with evolution of plasticity when predation pressure
increased while this pattern reversed with subsequent relaxation of
predation pressure.