Climate change effects persist in great-great-grandchildren

Changes in animal development induced by climate change persist for generations after the initial event; In fact, the increasing effects of climate change are likely to, in effect, accelerate evolution. This is clear from a new article from the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom) published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution by Oxford University Press.

Temperatures on Earth are rising due to anthropogenic climate changewhich represents an evolutionary challenge for many populations. Higher average temperatures and more extreme events, such as heat waves, will lead to increasingly frequent stressful events that can serve as powerful evolutionary drivers.

Thus, recent research suggests that Interactions between DNA sequences and genetic regulation could link environmental adaptation to rapid evolution. However, little is known about how these processes interact in natural genetic contexts.

The researchers conducted laboratory experiments to measure gene expression and gene regulatory responses to heat shock in female fruit flies collected in Spain and Finland (to assess responses in arid and cold climates), their associations with population variation, and fitness-related changes, including viability and development time of offspring. They also measured the same characteristics generations later to explore transgenerational inheritance.

In turn, scientists found strong gene expression responses to heat shock in both arid and cold populationsbut these responses were less regulated in the cold population.

Heat shock negatively affected the viability and development of the initial cohort of offspring. (eggs laid within two days of heat shock) in both populations, but in the arid populationlater brood cohorts (eggs laid more than two days after heat shock) They developed faster than controls, indicating a potentially beneficial physiological response.

Some effects of heat shock on gene expression persisted after three generationsespecially in the arid population, where important regulatory genes showed similar gene expression between generations.

Furthermore, in the arid population, the offspring of the heat-shocked flies continued to develop more rapidly than the offspring of the controls, indicating that beneficial physiological responses were transmitted to the offspring of later generations.

This result, together with the detection of genetic variants in the arid population associated with changes in gene expression, provides important clues about how stress can affect the evolutionary process.

“The transgenerational effects on gene expression and development time that we observed demonstrate that stress could not only select for better-adapted flies, but could also facilitate evolution,” the researchers note.

“Understanding why some variants may respond better transgenerationally than others could be important for identifying populations at risk as the Earth’s climate continues to change,” the experts conclude.