Adaptation

Mixing fishes and climate change – adaptation by hybridisation

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Adapting to a changing world

The global climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, approaching conditions last seen globally over 3 million years ago. Impacted by the compounding effects of climate change, habitat modification, invasive species and direct exploitation (e.g., fishing and hunting), species across the globe are threatened with extinction. Key to the effective management of global biodiversity is the understanding of how species may (or may not) rise to the challenge of climate change: can species adapt? Which species will adapt? How will they adapt? The answers to these questions are elusive and complicated.

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Runaway inbreeding: how runs of homozygosity impact conservation management

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On the precipice

Species which exist in fragmented, isolated and reduced populations have elevated extinction risk. Not only are they more susceptible to demographic and environmental stochasticity, which can easily wipe out small populations, but they also suffer from a range of genetic impacts. Notably, populations often lose significant amounts of genetic diversity as they reduce in size, potentially losing important adaptive diversity enabling them to respond to current and future environmental change. At the same time, random genetic drift becomes stronger relative to natural selection, reducing the efficacy of selection to be able to increase the frequency of favourable alleles and reduce the frequency of maladaptive ones. Together, these impacts create feedback loops which hasten the decline into the extinction vortex.

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Conservation applications of functional variation

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From genotype to phenotype

One fundamental aspect of conservation and evolution research is the implicit connection between genetic variation, phenotypic characteristics, and their influence on Darwinian fitness. Genetic diversity underpins many aspects of the adaptive potential of a population, and many of the fundamental concepts of the field rely on the assumed connection between genetic and phenotypic characteristics. But this connection is neither straightforward, nor always predictable.

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A simplified guide to genomic vulnerability

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Predicting the future for biodiversity

Conservation biology is frequently referred to as a “crisis discipline“, a status which doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon. Like any response to a crisis, biologists of all walks of life operate under a prioritisation scheme – how can our finite resources be best utilised to save as much biodiversity as possible? This approach requires some knowledge of both current vulnerability and future threat – we need to focus our efforts on those populations and species which are most at-risk of extinction in the near (often immediate) future.

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Sweeping under the genomic rug: hard and soft sweeps

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Of alleles and selection

If you’ve read this blog more than once before, you’re probably sick of hearing about how genetic variation underlies adaptation. It’s probably the most central theme of this blog, and similarly one of the biggest components of contemporary biology. We’ve talked about different types of selection; different types of genes; different ways genes and selection can interact. And believe it or not, there’s still heaps to talk about! Continue reading →