{"id":3441,"date":"2019-05-03T15:08:10","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T06:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/163.180.4.222\/lab\/?p=3441"},"modified":"2019-05-03T15:08:10","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T06:08:10","slug":"how-to-survive-in-a-human-dominated-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biochemistry.khu.ac.kr\/lab\/?p=3441","title":{"rendered":"How to survive in a human-dominated world"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Humans are altering Earth’s systems to such an extent that the geological period in which we are living has been dubbed the Anthropocene (1<\/em><\/a>). Climate change, human land use, and the chemicals used in everyday living challenge biological species by creating new environments to which they must rapidly adapt or go extinct (1<\/em><\/a>,\u00a02<\/em><\/a>). Can species evolve fast enough to survive? On page 455 of this issue, Oziolor\u00a0et al.<\/em>\u00a0(3<\/em><\/a>) show that the answer can be yes. The authors report that a fish species rapidly adapted to toxins in a highly polluted region of the Gulf of Mexico. They identify gene exchange between species by hybridization (introgression) as the mechanism enabling rapid adaptation and rescue of populations that might have otherwise gone extinct.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, scientists have considered adaptive evolution to be a slow process. Yet, an increasing number of studies have shown that species can adapt rapidly to environmental challenges (2<\/em><\/a>). Such rapid adaptation provides hope that species can adapt to the profound changes occurring in our human-dominated world. Failure to adapt means that species go locally, and possibly globally, extinct. The challenge for biologists is to explain why some species rapidly adapt when others fail. The stakes for solving this challenge are high: Humans are inducing one of Earth’s mass extinction events (4<\/em><\/a>), and a better understanding of when and how species adapt to environmental stressors can provide critical information for conservation efforts.<\/p>\n

A key determinant of adaptive potential is how much genetic variation a population harbors. When such variation is present, populations confronted with environmental change can potentially respond through rapid evolutionary change. Without genetic variation, a population cannot evolve. The problem is that, when populations experience environmental challenges, population size declines because individuals die or fail to reproduce. And when populations lose individuals, they lose variation too. The result is a negative feedback loop. The more individuals die or fail to reproduce, the less likely it becomes that a population can adapt; the less adapted a population, the more individuals die or don’t reproduce. Breaking out of this feedback loop requires an influx of new genetic variation. Populations typically acquire this new variation through mutation or gene flow from other populations. Yet, adaptive mutations might not arise quickly enough to rescue declining populations before they go extinct, and gene flow from other populations often brings in variation that is only adaptive in the population’s old environment, not the new one (4<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n

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