美国马萨诸塞大学Cheng, Brian S的团队研究表明海洋物种的热极限进化差异大于陆地物种。相关论文于2022年12月1日发表在《自然—气候变化》杂志上。

研究运用元分析的方法，量化了来自61个陆地、淡水、海洋和潮间带类群的305个种群的热耐受性变化。研究人员发现，在海洋和潮间带类群中，不同种群存在很强的耐热性差异，而在陆地和淡水类群中则没有。这与海洋中连接的增加应该减少种内变异的预期相反。海洋中的这种适应性分化表明，物种水平上可能存在持久的遗传变异来缓冲气候的影响。对气候变暖脆弱性的评估应考虑到种群间耐热性的差异(或缺乏耐热性)，以改善对气候脆弱性的预测。

据介绍，哪些生态系统最容易受到气候变暖的影响这一问题有相当大的不确定性。目前对生物体敏感性的理解主要集中在物种水平的评估上，不考虑种群间的差异。

附：英文原文

Title: Greater evolutionary divergence of thermal limits within marine than terrestrial species

Author: Sasaki, Matthew, Barley, Jordanna M., Gignoux-Wolfsohn, Sarah, Hays, Cynthia G., Kelly, Morgan W., Putnam, Alysha B., Sheth, Seema N., Villeneuve, Andrew R., Cheng, Brian S.

Issue&Volume: 2022-12-01

Abstract: There is considerable uncertainty regarding which ecosystems are most vulnerable to warming. Current understanding of organismal sensitivity is largely centred on species-level assessments that do not consider variation across populations. Here we used meta-analysis to quantify upper thermal tolerance variation across 305 populations from 61 terrestrial, freshwater, marine and intertidal taxa. We found strong differentiation in heat tolerance across populations in marine and intertidal taxa but not terrestrial or freshwater taxa. This is counter to the expectation that increased connectivity in the ocean should reduce intraspecific variation. Such adaptive differentiation in the ocean suggests there may be standing genetic variation at the species level to buffer climate impacts. Assessments of vulnerability to warming should account for variation in thermal tolerance among populations (or the lack thereof) to improve predictions about climate vulnerability.

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01534-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01534-y