Testing the DNA decay hypothesis of ecological specialization

澳大利亚的生物多样性日益受到气候变化和栖息地丧失造成的碎片化的威胁。为了保护生物多样性，我们需要确定最濒临灭绝的物种。物种避免灭绝的一种方法是进化和适应不断变化的环境，然而，现在看来，许多物种的适应潜力有限。在这里，我们开发并测试了一个新想法，它有助于预测受气候变化和其他类型压力威胁最大的物种。我们还确定了与适应干燥/寒冷条件和毒素有关的几组基因。这些信息提供了一种快速识别最危险和最不可能适应的物种的方法，并为澳大利亚的生物多样性提供了新的视角。

Australia's biodiversity has been increasingly threatened by climate change and fragmentation from habitat loss. To conserve biodiversity we need to identify species most at risk of extinction. One way species avoid extinction is to evolve and adapt to changing conditions, however, it now appears that many species have a limited adaptive potential. Here we develop and test a new idea that helps to predict species most threatened by climate change and other types of stresses. We also identify the sets of genes that are involved in adapting to dry/cold conditions and toxins. This information provides a rapid way of identifying species most at risk and least likely to adapt, and a new perspective on Australia's biodiversity.