Data from: Avoiding dead ends: the experimental evolution of constraint as adaptation to environmental variation

A bet-hedging strategy is suboptimal over short timescales, but optimal over long time scales because it buffers temporal variance in fitness. However, it is unclear how such strategies can persist when selection is expected to purge suboptimal traits in the short term. It has been proposed that the persistence of bet hedging is possible only if adaptive evolution is constrained in the short-term (Simons, 2002). To test the constraint-as-adaptation hypothesis, we take an experimental evolution approach using Saccharomyces cerevisiae and predict that evolution under reduced-frequency detrimental events results in an increase in evolution-resistant bet-hedging. Specifically, we evolve bet-hedging by imposing fluctuating selection through repeated heat shocks separated by intervening benign environments in which the frequency of extreme environments is reduced across two sequential evolution regimes (Regimes A and B). Then, to measure evolved constraints lines from both regimes are further evolved under extended benign conditions for ~150 generations and tested for the loss of heat shock tolerance. This dataset provides heat shock tolerance and competitive fitness data for replicate lines evolved in both regimes, and for the T1 ancestor. This dataset also provides these trait measurements after the replicate lines from both regimes are further evolved under extended benign conditions.