Simulated climate change provokes rapid genetic change in the Mediterranean shrub Fumana thymifolia

By Alistair S. Jump, Josep Peñuelas, L. Rico, Elisenda Ramallo, M. Estiarte, J. Martı́nez-Izquierdo, F. Lloret. 2008

95 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Rapid climate change will impose strong directional selection pressures on natural plant populations. Climate‐linked genetic variation in natural populations indicates that an evolutionary response is possible. We investigated such a response by comparing individuals subjected to elevated drought and warming treatments with individuals establishing in an unmanipulated climate within the same population. We report that reduction in seedling establishment in response to climate manipulations is nonrandom and results from the selection pressure imposed by artificially warmed and droughted conditions. When compared against control samples, high single‐locus genetic divergence occurred in drought and warming treatment samples, with genetic differentiation up to 37 times higher than background (mean neutral locus) genetic differentiation. These loci violate assumptions of selective neutrality, indicating the signature of natural selection by drought. Our results demonstrate that rapid evolution in response to climate change may be widespread in natural populations, based on genetic variation already present within the population.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4c1182eed047d970fe6feed1c42bbff4ae0cb470

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Citations in the corpus

Ecological and evolutionary responses of Mediterranean plants to global change. (2014, unknown): “Second, they can accommodate the novel environmental conditions via phenotypic plasticity (see Glossary, Section 3), and, third, they can evolve through natural selection (Parmesan, 2006; Ghalambor et al., 2007; Jump et al., 2008; Visser, 2008; Hoffmann and Sgrò, 2011) (Section 4; Fig.”
Impacts of Global Change on Mediterranean Forests and Their Services (2017, unknown): “Field studies of altitudinal gradients in the Montseny Mountains [27–29] and field experiments with warming and drought manipulation in the Garraf Mountains in typical Mediterranean shrubland [30] have demonstrated that species acclimate and adapt (evolve) quickly to climate change.”
A framework for incorporating evolutionary genomics into biodiversity conservation and management (2015, unknown): “See [96-98]”
Temperature effects on forest herbs assessed by warming and transplant experiments along a latitudinal gradient (2011, background): “…not necessarily suggest that adaptation to rapid climate change will take place: the rate of adaptive evolution of many species (especially perennials with a long life span) is likely slower than the predicted rate of climate change (reviewed in Jump & Peñuelas, 2005; but see Jump et al., 2008).”
Climate change and plant regeneration from seed (2011, background): “…generations in response to warming and CO2 enhancement (Potvin & Tousignant, 1996), seedling establishment of Fumana thymifolia over 7 years with drought (Jump et al., 2008), and germination of arable weeds over 40 years with the conversion from winter cereals to summer cereals and corn (Table 3).”