Validation of predictions of evolutionary rescue from global change

• Applicant: Professor Thorsten Reusch, Ph.D., since 8/2024
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 504958481

The unprecedented rates of human driven environmental change will require evolutionary responses for some populations to persist or recover; this process is known as evolutionary rescue. However, predicting maladaptation in future environments and the probability of evolutionary rescue is difficult. A promising method is genomic vulnerability, where patterns of local adaptation are used to identify the genomic basis of abiotic tolerance. These genomic bases can then be used to predict maladaptation under future conditions and to determine the probability of evolutionary rescue. These methods are potentially powerful tools to inform conservation decisions, for example when planning interventions or assisted gene flow. While this approach may develop into a critical conservation tool, testing its accuracy is difficult in most species. I propose to use the foundational copepod, Acartia tonsa, as a model to test predictions of genomic vulnerability and evolutionary rescue under salinity declines. Using genomic approaches, I will 1) Generate predictions of genomic vulnerability and potential for evolutionary rescue under global change; 2) Leverage experimental evolution to directly quantify evolutionary potential and genomic vulnerability; 3) Verify the robustness of predictions for evolutionary rescue and genomic vulnerability.Acartia tonsa is an ideal system to address these questions because of its genomic resources and experimental tractability. Its small size and rapid generation time enable methods, such as experimental evolution, that are not possible in most systems. Further, A. tonsa is a foundational species and its resilience is important for marine ecosystem stability world-wide. Like many marine systems, Baltic Sea salinity is expected to decrease by 3 practical salinity units by 2100. As such, understanding the resilience of A.tonsa to future salinity decline informs us of the stability of Baltic Sea ecosystems. This work will reveal the robustness of predictions of genomic vulnerability and evolutionary rescue and provide insight into why predictions may be accurate or fail, informing the amount of confidence that should be placed in similar estimates for other species where their robustness cannot be directly tested. Finally, these results will provide fundamental insight into how evolutionary rescue proceeds under rapid environmental change.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Reid Brennan, Ph.D., until 8/2024