澳大利亚国立大学Timothée Bonnet研究团队近日取得一项新成果。经过不懈努力，他们通过适应性遗传变异揭示了野生动物的当代快速适应性进化。这一研究成果于2022年5月26日发表在国际学术期刊《科学》上。
研究人员研发了定量遗传方法并将其应用于19个野生鸟类和哺乳动物种群的长期数据集，发现虽然种群之间的估计值不同，但相对适应度的附加遗传方差通常很大，平均来说是先前估计值的两倍。该研究表明，这些与当代适应性进化相关的速率可以影响种群动态，因此自然选择有可能部分减轻当前环境变化对种群的影响。
据了解，适应性进化的速率，即选择对增加平均适应度遗传变化的贡献，由个体相对适应度的附加遗传方差决定。迄今为止，缺少对自然种群这一参数的可靠评估，因此尚不清楚适应性进化是否可以在短期种群动态变化中发挥积极的作用。
附：英文原文
Title: Genetic variance in fitness indicates rapid contemporary adaptive evolution in wild animals
Author: Timothée Bonnet, Michael B. Morrissey, Pierre de Villemereuil, Susan C. Alberts, Peter Arcese, Liam D. Bailey, Stan Boutin, Patricia Brekke, Lauren J. N. Brent, Glauco Camenisch, Anne Charmantier, Tim H. Clutton-Brock, Andrew Cockburn, David W. Coltman, Alexandre Courtiol, Eve Davidian, Simon R. Evans, John G. Ewen, Marco Festa-Bianchet, Christophe de Franceschi, Lars Gustafsson, Oliver P. Hner, Thomas M. Houslay, Lukas F. Keller, Marta Manser, Andrew G. McAdam, Emily McLean, Pirmin Nietlisbach, Helen L. Osmond, Josephine M. Pemberton, Erik Postma, Jane M. Reid, Alexis Rutschmann, Anna W. Santure, Ben C. Sheldon, Jon Slate, Céline Teplitsky, Marcel E. Visser, Bettina Wachter, Loeske E. B. Kruuk
Issue&Volume: 2022-05-27
Abstract: The rate of adaptive evolution, the contribution of selection to genetic changes that increase mean fitness, is determined by the additive genetic variance in individual relative fitness. To date, there are few robust estimates of this parameter for natural populations, and it is therefore unclear whether adaptive evolution can play a meaningful role in short-term population dynamics. We developed and applied quantitative genetic methods to long-term datasets from 19 wild bird and mammal populations and found that, while estimates vary between populations, additive genetic variance in relative fitness is often substantial and, on average, twice that of previous estimates. We show that these rates of contemporary adaptive evolution can affect population dynamics and hence that natural selection has the potential to partly mitigate effects of current environmental change.
DOI: abk0853
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0853