Publication Date:
2003-07-05
Description:
The ability of sensitive rainforest species to evolve in response to climate change is largely unknown. We show that the Australian tropical rainforest fly Drosophila birchii exhibits clinal variation in desiccation resistance, but the most resistant population lacks the ability to evolve further resistance even after intense selection for over 30 generations. Parent-offspring comparisons indicate low heritable variation for this trait but high levels of genetic variation for morphology. D. birchii also exhibits abundant genetic variation at microsatellite loci. The low potential for resistance evolution highlights the importance of assessing evolutionary potential in targeted ecological traits and species from threatened habitats.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Hoffmann, A A -- Hallas, R J -- Dean, J A -- Schiffer, M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2003 Jul 4;301(5629):100-2.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3086, Australia. A.Hoffmann@latrobe.edu.au〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12843394" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Adaptation, Physiological
;
Animals
;
Australia
;
*Biological Evolution
;
*Climate
;
Crosses, Genetic
;
Dehydration
;
Drosophila/*genetics/*physiology
;
Ecosystem
;
Environment
;
Female
;
*Genetic Variation
;
Geography
;
Inbreeding
;
Male
;
Microsatellite Repeats
;
Selection, Genetic
;
Trees
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
