scholarly journals The effect of selection history on extinction risk during severe environmental change

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 1872-1883 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Lachapelle ◽  
N. Colegrave ◽  
G. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Selection History

scholarly journals Avoiding extinction under nonlinear environmental change: models of evolutionary rescue with plasticity

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip B. Greenspoon ◽  
Hamish G. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Species At Risk ◽  
Adaptive Genetic Variation ◽  
Change Models ◽  
Numerous Species ◽  
Evolutionary Rescue

Rapid environmental changes are putting numerous species at risk of extinction. For migration-limited species, persistence depends on either phenotypic plasticity or evolutionary adaptation (evolutionary rescue). Current theory on evolutionary rescue typically assumes linear environmental change. Yet accelerating environmental change may pose a bigger threat. Here, we present a model of a species encountering an environment with accelerating or decelerating change, to which it can adapt through evolution or phenotypic plasticity (within-generational or transgenerational). We show that unless either form of plasticity is sufficiently strong or adaptive genetic variation is sufficiently plentiful, accelerating or decelerating environmental change increases extinction risk compared to linear environmental change for the same mean rate of environmental change.

scholarly journals Mating system affects population performance and extinction risk under environmental challenge

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1747) ◽  
pp. 4661-4667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Plesnar-Bielak ◽  
Anna M. Skrzynecka ◽  
Zofia M. Prokop ◽  
Jacek Radwan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Mating System ◽  
Experimental Evolution ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Rhizoglyphus Robini ◽  
Higher Temperature ◽  
Population Performance

Failure of organisms to adapt to sudden environmental changes may lead to extinction. The type of mating system, by affecting fertility and the strength of sexual selection, may have a major impact on a population's chances to adapt and survive. Here, we use experimental evolution in bulb mites ( Rhizoglyphus robini ) to examine the effects of the mating system on population performance under environmental change. We demonstrate that populations in which monogamy was enforced suffered a dramatic fitness decline when evolving at an increased temperature, whereas the negative effects of change in a thermal environment were alleviated in polygamous populations. Strikingly, within 17 generations, all monogamous populations experiencing higher temperature went extinct, whereas all polygamous populations survived. Our results show that the mating system may have dramatic effects on the risk of extinction under environmental change.

Loss of genetic diversity reduces ability to adapt

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Frankham ◽  
Jonathan D. Ballou ◽  
Katherine Ralls ◽  
Mark D. B. Eldridge ◽  
Michele R. Dudash ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Adaptive Evolution ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Genomic Diversity ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Loss Of Genetic Diversity ◽  
New Mutations

Environmental change is a ubiquitous feature of the conditions faced by species, so they must either evolve, move to avoid threats, or perish. Species require genetic diversity to evolve to cope with environmental change through natural selection (adaptive evolution). The ability of populations to undergo adaptive evolution depends upon the strength of selection, genetic diversity, effective population size, mutation rates and number of generations. Loss of genetic diversity in small populations reduces their ability to evolve to cope with environmental change, thus increasing their extinction risk. Adaptive evolution in the short to medium term predominantly utilizes pre-existing genetic diversity, but new mutations make increasing contributions in later generations. Evolutionary potential can be estimated from the heritability of fitness in the environment of interest, or by extrapolation from genomic diversity.

scholarly journals Environmental fluctuations can promote evolutionary rescue in high-extinction-risk scenarios

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1932) ◽  
pp. 20201144
Author(s):  
James H. Peniston ◽  
Michael Barfield ◽  
Andrew Gonzalez ◽  
Robert D. Holt
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Population Size ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Environmental Variation ◽  
Stochastic Simulations ◽  
Initial Population ◽  
Risk Scenarios ◽  
Evolutionary Rescue ◽  
Environmental Fluctuations

Substantial environmental change can force a population onto a path towards extinction, but under some conditions, adaptation by natural selection can rescue the population and allow it to persist. This process, known as evolutionary rescue, is believed to be less likely to occur with greater magnitudes of random environmental fluctuations because environmental variation decreases expected population size, increases variance in population size and increases evolutionary lag. However, previous studies of evolutionary rescue in fluctuating environments have only considered scenarios in which evolutionary rescue was likely to occur. We extend these studies to assess how baseline extinction risk (which we manipulated via changes in the initial population size, degree of environmental change or mutation rate) influences the effects of environmental variation on evolutionary rescue following an abrupt environmental change. Using a combination of analytical models and stochastic simulations, we show that autocorrelated environmental variation hinders evolutionary rescue in low-extinction-risk scenarios but facilitates rescue in high-risk scenarios. In these high-risk cases, the chance of a run of good years counteracts the otherwise negative effects of environmental variation on evolutionary demography. These findings can inform the development of effective conservation practices that consider evolutionary responses to abrupt environmental changes.

An historical analysis of species references in American English

Corpora ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-349
Author(s):  
Craig Frayne
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
American English ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Google Books

This study uses the two largest available American English language corpora, Google Books and the Corpus of Historical American English (coha), to investigate relations between ecology and language. The paper introduces ecolinguistics as a promising theme for corpus research. While some previous ecolinguistic research has used corpus approaches, there is a case to be made for quantitative methods that draw on larger datasets. Building on other corpus studies that have made connections between language use and environmental change, this paper investigates whether linguistic references to other species have changed in the past two centuries and, if so, how. The methodology consists of two main parts: an examination of the frequency of common names of species followed by aspect-level sentiment analysis of concordance lines. Results point to both opportunities and challenges associated with applying corpus methods to ecolinguistc research.

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