Munday, Philip L. (2015) Evolutionary ecology: survival of the fittest. Nature Climate Change, 5. pp. 102-103.

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Abstract

[Extract] Evolutionary adaptation will help some animals cope with future climate change, but for juvenile salmon there may be limits to how far the thermal tolerance of cardiac function can adapt.

Which animal populations will persist in a future warmer world depends, in part, on their ability to adapt to higher temperatures. As the world warms, populations can move to track preferred temperatures, they may acclimate to warmer temperatures through phenotypic plasticity, or they may become better suited to the new environment through evolutionary adaptation. There are many examples of how projected future temperatures could dramatically affect the performance of a wide range of different plant and animal species, but whether these species will adapt over the longer term is largely unknown, especially in aquatic environments. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Muñoz et al. show that physiological traits important to the survival of juvenile chinook salmon have both plasticity and genetic potential to adapt to warmer temperatures. However, the news is not all good, because one key trait — the upper thermal limit for heart function — appears to lack plasticity or significant genetic variation. As a result chinook populations face an increasing risk of catastrophic population loss if river temperatures continue to warm.

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