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BIOLOGICAL ADAPTATION

Climatic selection and gene expression plasticity

Nature Climate Change volume 11, page 4 (2021)Cite this article

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Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 17112–17121 (2020)

Climate change is exposing organisms to physical conditions outside of their expected or even tolerated ranges. These changes can result in documented spatial and temporal shifts, and (local) extinctions, but populations can also show resilience to change, particularly if they have the potential to adapt. As such, understanding the vulnerability or resilience of populations to change involves understanding the mechanisms that drive biological climate adaptation. In environments undergoing not just gradual changes but also an increase in the frequency or magnitude of extreme events, gene expression plasticity — the capacity of genes to change their expression levels under changing conditions — may be of particular importance. Gene expression plasticity can evolve rapidly and be heritable by genetic or epigenetic means (see recent review: Front. Genet. 11, 538226; 2020). While supporting the potential for gene expression plasticity in adaptation to rapidly shifting climates, these features also suggest that plasticity might already vary substantially between closely related populations that have evolved under different conditions.

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Fig. 1: Melanotaenia duboulayi, one of the rainbowfish species from the study.

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  1. Nature Climate Change https://www.nature.com/natureclimatechange

    Tegan Armarego-Marriott

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  1. Tegan Armarego-Marriott
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Correspondence to Tegan Armarego-Marriott.

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Armarego-Marriott, T. Climatic selection and gene expression plasticity. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 4 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00979-3

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