Landscape genomics, climate change, and adaptation

人为变化正在加速我们的环境变化的速度。特别是，温度和降雨模式正在以惊人的速度发生变化。如此迅速的变化威胁着生物多样性，因为有机体正在努力应对压力环境，例如气温上升。生物体如何应对环境变化的选择有限，但特别重要的将是进化的解决方案，如适应。适应发生在基因水平上，但应对气候变化的基因改变的性质尚不清楚。此外，对基因变化的许多理解都是基于实验室研究，最近的研究表明，实验室结果并不总是转化为野生种群的反应。因此，为了了解生物多样性将如何受到环境变化的影响，我们迫切需要关于自然人口如何适应环境变化以及这种适应的遗传原因的信息。在这里，我们的目的是确定果蝇野生种群对自然温度变化的适应性遗传反应。我们将在从西班牙巴伦西亚到瑞典乌普萨拉的六个地点沿温度梯度建立室外苍蝇围栏。在热和冷两种压力温度下，我们将从这些圈养种群中抽取雄性样本，并测量哪些基因在这些温度下“上调”或“下调”。然后我们就可以比较人群中这些基因的差异。我们预测，北方的种群将比南方的种群更适应冷，因此在应对热和冷压力时发生变化的基因将会不同。因为我们将使用识别其书面密码的技术来测量这些基因，我们还可以测试密码本身是否在不同种群之间有所不同。自然选择被认为会导致这样的编码变化，所以我们在这里测试这一预测。最后，我们将寻找这些基因在基因组上发生变化的位置。基因组中有一些区域可以抵抗基因在染色体上所处位置的随机变化。这些区域被认为在保护提供对环境条件适应的基因方面很重要。我们还将检验这一预测。这三种遗传反应以前既没有在一个系统中被研究过，也没有在野生种群中被研究过。因此，这项工作将为我们提供关于自然种群中因温度而发生的基因变化的前所未有的信息。由于这项工作询问了整个景观的这种变化，这项研究将为大量对土地开发和物种管理战略特别感兴趣的保护团体和非政府组织提供宝贵的背景。此外，我们的工作将在气候变化和进化这两个引起分歧的公共问题之间建立联系，这两个问题可以用来解决科学的性质和科学证据。

Anthropogenic changes are accelerating the rate at which our environment is changing. In particular, temperature and rainfall patterns are being altered at an alarming pace. Such rapid change threatens biodiversity as organisms struggle to cope with stressful environments, for example, increased temperature. There are limited options for how an organism can respond to a changing environment, but of particular importance will be evolutionary solutions, such as adaptation. Adaptations occur at the genetic level but the nature of the genetic alterations in response to climate change is unclear. Moreover, much understanding about genetic changes is based on laboratory studies, and recent research has suggested that laboratory results do not always translate to how wild populations respond. Thus, to understand how biodiversity will be impacted by changing environments, we critically need information about how natural populations may adapt to environmental changes and the genetic causes of such adaptation. Here we aim to identify adaptive genetic responses to natural temperature changes in wild populations of the fruit fly, Drosophila subobscura. We will establish outdoor enclosures of flies along a temperature gradient at six sites from Valencia, Spain to Uppsala, Sweden. At two stressful temperatures, hot and cold, we will sample males from these captive populations and measure what genes are 'turned up' or 'turned down' in response to these temperatures. We can then compare populations for differences in these genes. We predict that populations in the north will be more cold adapted than those in the south and that therefore the genes that are changed in response to hot and cold stress will be different. Because we will measure these genes using technology that identifies their written code, we can also test whether the code itself differs between populations. Natural selection is thought to result in such coding changes so we will test that prediction here. Finally, we will look for the locations on the genome where these genes are changed. There are areas of the genome which are resistant to random alterations of where a gene is located on a chromosome. Such areas are thought to be important in sheltering genes that provide adaptation to environmental conditions. We will also test that prediction. This triad of genetic responses has neither been examined in one system before, nor in wild populations. Thus, this work will give us unprecedented information on the genetic changes that occur in response to temperature in natural populations. Since the work asks about such changes across a landscape, the research will provide valuable background to a large number of conservation groups and NGOs that have particular interests in land development and species management strategies. Moreover, our work will provide a link between two divisive public issues - climate change and evolution - that can be used to address the nature of science and scientific evidence.