In our ecosystems, all living things follow a process called natural selection. This process is what decides which genes are most beneficial for the survival of living beings and cause "improvements" in adaptation.
Climate change and its devastating effects on the whole world, it can also affect this process of natural selection, causing the different evolutionary trajectories of organisms to be modified.
What is natural selection?
To fully understand how climate change affects natural selection, we have to know what it is all about. Natural selection is the process by which a species adapts to its environment. Evolutionary change is led when individuals with certain characteristics have a higher survival or reproduction rate than other individuals in the population and pass these heritable genetic characteristics to their progeny.
A genotype is a group of organisms that share a specific genetic set. Therefore, to put it simply, natural selection is the consistent difference in survival and reproduction between different genotypes. This is what we could call reproductive success.
Natural selection and climate change
A study published in the magazine Science published last week argues that global changes in this process of natural selection are guided more by rainfall than by temperatures. Because climate change modifies the rainfall regime at a global level, it can also affect this process of natural selection.
Although the ecological consequences of climate change are increasingly well documented, the effects of climate on the evolutionary process that guides adaptation are unknown ”, says the text published in Science.
Because this is quite complex work, scientists have had to go and use a large database that is behind the studies carried out over the last decades. In this database are the studies carried out on the different populations of animals, plants and other organisms, as well as their ability to survive and reproduce.
Decreased rainfall and increased droughts
One of the variables that can most affect natural selection is the rainfall regime. If they decrease, droughts increase, both in time and in frequency. Then, the increase in droughts causes many areas to become drier and even desert. However, in other areas, rainfall is increasing and there may be cases in which the region becomes a more humid area.
Whatever the case, this affects the patterns of natural selection. That is, the evolution of the different species of organisms is affected because not only do the genes of the species change, but so does the external agent (the climate). Variations in climate, such as increased temperatures, wind regimes, rainfall, etc. They affect the modifications that different organisms can undergo as a result of the natural selection process.
Changes in ecosystems
In ecosystems, there may be long-term changes in which the different species may have a “margin” to adapt and learn to survive in the face of new scenarios. For example, a change in the rain pattern can affect the food source of various organisms. That is, species that depend on certain foods, such as herbivores, can be affected by a reduction in plant cover due to the decrease in rainfall.
That is why knowing the effects of climate change and knowing its relationship with the evolutionary processes of natural selection is of vital importance to know the change in the functioning of ecosystems. Due to the fact that in the short term an increase in heavy rainfall is expected that could lead to considerable changes in the selection patterns.
As I have commented before, depending on the speed with which the changes in ecosystems occur, the species may or may not adapt to new situations. However, what cannot be denied is that climate change has enough potential to alter the adaptation of living beings around the world.
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