Precipitation drives global variation in natural selection
Abstract
Climate change has the potential to affect the ecology and evolution of every species on Earth. Although the ecological consequences of climate change are increasingly well documented, the effects of climate on the key evolutionary process driving adaptation-natural selection-are largely unknown. We report that aspects of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, along with the North Atlantic Oscillation, predicted variation in selection across plant and animal populations throughout many terrestrial biomes, whereas temperature explained little variation. By showing that selection was influenced by climate variation, our results indicate that climate change may cause widespread alterations in selection regimes, potentially shifting evolutionary trajectories at a global scale.
Citation
Siepielski , A M , Morrissey , M B , Buoro , M , Carlson , S M , Caruso , C M , Clegg , S M , Coulson , T , DiBattista , J , Gotanda , K M , Francis , C D , Hereford , J , Kingsolver , J G , Augustine , K E , Kruuk , L E B , Martin , R A , Sheldon , B C , Sletvold , N , Svensson , E I , Wade , M J & MacColl , A D C 2017 , ' Precipitation drives global variation in natural selection ' , Science , vol. 355 , no. 6328 , pp. 959-962 . https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag2773
Publication
Science
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0036-8075Type
Journal article
Description
This work originated from a National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) working group (NSF grant EF-0905606). A.M.S acknowledges the NSF (grant DEB1620046); B.C.S is a Wolfson Research Merit Award holder; R.A.M was supported by the NSF (grant DBI 1300426); K.M.G was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); and L.E.B.K. was supported by the Australian Research Council.Collections
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