Using the resurrection approach to understand contemporary evolution in changing environments.

Steven J Franks,Elena Hamann,Arthur E Weis

doi:10.1111/eva.12528

Steven J Franks, Elena Hamann + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.12528

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Abstract

The resurrection approach of reviving ancestors from stored propagules and comparing them with descendants under common conditions has emerged as a powerful method of detecting and characterizing contemporary evolution. As climatic and other environmental conditions continue to change at a rapid pace, this approach is becoming particularly useful for predicting and monitoring evolutionary responses. We evaluate this approach, explain the advantages and limitations, suggest best practices for implementation, review studies in which this approach has been used, and explore how it can be incorporated into conservation and management efforts. We find that although the approach has thus far been used in a limited number of cases, these studies have provided strong evidence for rapid contemporary adaptive evolution in a variety of systems, particularly in response to anthropogenic environmental change, although it is far from clear that evolution will be able to rescue many populations from extinction given current rates of global changes. We also highlight one effort, known as Project Baseline, to create a collection of stored seeds that can take advantage of the resurrection approach to examine evolutionary responses to environmental change over the coming decades. We conclude that the resurrection approach is a useful tool that could be more widely employed to examine basic questions about evolution in natural populations and to assist in the conservation and management of these populations as they face continued environmental change.

Highlights

In an age of global change, it is imperative to understand the ability of populations to evolve apace with shifts in climate, atmospheric CO2 concentration, and land use
What is the range in evolutionary potential among natural populations? How can we monitor adaptive change in functional traits? How do we most effectively deploy genomic tools to identify the targets of selection? Here we argue that an experimental protocol, called the “resurrection approach,” in which ancestors and descendants are compared under common conditions, can make significant contributions in addressing these questions, and provide information on both fundamental and applied aspects of contemporary evolution
Natural ecosystems and the biodiversity within them will be under continued stress caused by a changing climate, increased atmospheric CO2, and intensified land use brought by human population growth

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

In an age of global change, it is imperative to understand the ability of populations to evolve apace with shifts in climate, atmospheric CO2 concentration, and land use. This method can directly detect phenotypic evolution and, when the ancestors can be dated, can estimate rates of change This “back-in-time” approach was used with seeds frozen in arctic tundra, where viable seeds could be retrieved and seed coats radiometrically dated (McGraw, Vavrek, & Bennington, 1991), and with egg banks of Daphnia found in layers of aquatic sediment that could be dated (Kerfoot & Weider, 2004; Pauwels et al, 2010), with ancestral eggs revived and compared with modern populations. Over the past few decades of global warming, a wide variety of species have shifted their springtime life- history transitions (breaking winter dormancy, migration to breeding grounds, etc.) to earlier dates (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003) These time series data are phenotypic only, and so lack the information needed to determine what part, if any, of these shifts are due to genetic (i.e., evolutionary) changes. They determined that 2.5 days of this shift could be attributed to a change in mean breeding value, with the remainder

G Setup examined

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| CONCLUSIONS