Tiny fish evolved to tolerate colder temperature in three years: UBC study
University of British Columbia researchers have observed one of the fastest evolutionary responses ever recorded in wild populations. In as little as three years, stickleback fish developed tolerance for water temperature 2.5 degrees Celsius lower than their ancestors.
The study, published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, provides the some of the first experimental evidence that evolution may help populations survive effects of climate change.
Measuring three to 10 centimetres, stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began populating freshwater lakes and streams following the last ice age. Over the past 10,000 years, marine and freshwater sticklebacks have evolved different physical and behavioural traits, making them ideal models for Darwin’s natural selection theory.
“By testing the temperature tolerance of wild and lab-raised sticklebacks, we were able to determine that freshwater sticklebacks can tolerate lower temperatures than their marine counterparts,” says lead author Rowan Barrett from the UBC Department of Zoology. “This made sense from an evolutionary perspective because their ancestors were able to adapt to freshwater lakes, which typically reach colder temperatures than the ocean.”
To learn how quickly this adaptation took place, Barrett and colleagues from Switzerland and Sweden “recreated history” by transplanting marine sticklebacks to freshwater ponds and found that in as little as three generations (or three years), they were able to tolerate the same minimum temperature as freshwater sticklebacks, 2.5 °C lower than their ancestral populations.
“Scientific models have suggested that climate change could result in both a general, gradual increase of average temperatures and an increase in extreme temperatures,” says Barrett, who received his PhD last week.
“Our study is the first to experimentally show that certain species in the wild could adapt to climate change very rapidly – in this case, colder water temperature. However, this rapid adaptation is not achieved without a cost. Only rare individuals that possess the ability to tolerate rapid changes in temperature survive, and the number of survivors may not be large enough to sustain the population. It is crucial that knowledge of evolutionary processes is incorporated into conservation and management policy.”
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Is this trying to be precisely funny?
…Barrett and colleagues from Switzerland and Sweden “recreated history” by transplanting marine sticklebacks to freshwater ponds and found that in as little as three generations (or three years), they were able to tolerate the same minimum temperature as freshwater sticklebacks, 2.5 °C lower than their ancestral populations.
It’s more interesting that saltwater fish were dumped into fresh water and they survived long enough to reproduce. Sticklebacks must have bull shark genes in their makeup…
OMG! There go the mass extinction scenarios, replaced by mass adaptation possibilities. Is nothing sacred?!! What ever will the EPA do with their health and welfare concerns. Oh, the inhumaity of it all!
Do I really need to do a /sarc off to make it clear?
What nonsense. There is no possibility of “evolution” in three years. This is simply the selection of pre-existing genes in the gene pool. Most likely populations have moved between fresh & salt water environments over the centuries, leaving a few individuals with the genes needed to survive when a population has to rapidly adapt.
The above research is almost a silly as global warming alarmism.
continued..
And existing populations of most species will also contain genes adapted to past warmer and/or colder climates. These pre-existing genes will be selected in the case of any climate change.
Well there’s the answer to the burning question I’ve been asking myself for decades – how did sticklebacks survive the last glaciation?
I’ll be able to sleep soundly at night now…
Gee, I’ve had fish tolerate being hauled out of the water with a hook in their moth, put on a stringer in a damp bucket, driven home (about 15 minutes) and put in a bucket of slightly chlorinated water about 10 F colder than the original water and about 40 F below the air temp.
These were “bullhead catfish” that are tough as old boots…
I’ve also had aquarium fish take 2 F to 10 F in a couple of minutes during various less than careful tank cleanings. It’s just not a big deal.
BTW, there are loads of brackish water fish that tolerate salt or sweet water. Mollies are used to “condition” a salt water tank. You star with fresh water and Molles, then add some salt each day. They fish adjust, and put ‘poo bacteria’ in the gravel. When the tank is all working fine (no ammonia building up) you add the big salt water fish and the Mollies are renamed ‘lunch’….
These folks need to get a job at “PetsMart” in the fish department… they would learn more than they are now.
Crucial line:
“Only rare individuals that possess the ability to tolerate rapid changes in temperature survive, and the number of survivors may not be large enough to sustain the population.”
Rapid evolution is only plausible in highly fecund species (with high genetic diversity). This does not apply to many species, especially the most endangered ones.
Deja Vu? I believe that if man farts one way or the other Mother Nature will survive! OTOH, if Nature farts one way or the other, most of us are screwed! Why do people think flora & fauna is so week & feeble, we’re the week & feeble ones though all our PC molly-coddling!
Fish adapting to cold water? Look at the eland (Tragelaphus oryx), a large antelope native to Southern Africa. A number of eland were sent to Russia many years ago where they now flourish. They grew thick, shaggy coats in their very first winter there, something never seen in Africa.
“Relatively large numbers of the Common Eland now occur on private land, particularly in Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, reflecting its value as a trophy animal. Common Eland have also been widely domesticated in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Kenya, as well as in Russia, Ukraine, and England.” ( http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/22055/0 )
Don’t forget epigenetics either. My bet is that any species, when stressed, will have some or even many who wind up with various genes turned either on or off by epigenetics – methylation processes, that help them to survive or adapt to whatever the change is. Our genes just haven’t changed that drastically over time – many are exactly as they were hundreds of thousands of years ago.
As to evolution not being able to occur that rapidly – I wouldn’t bet on that either. Evolution isn’t just when a gene or genes mutate – but when a population undergoes severe rapid selection for certain traits it can occur almost overnight. Select for a certain set of genes that is not typically expressed within the population, and you may wind up with a variety that is quite distinct from the original population. Its the old genetic 101 class scenario of what happens if there is some natural catastrophe (or man made or what have you) such that only a very small segment of the population can survive and reproduce. Within just a generation or two you have a new population that has a very different gene distribution than the original population had, and its one that is able to survive within the new circumstance where the majority of the old population couldn’t.
I’m pretty sure that selection of pre-existing genes counts as evolution, especially given that non-existent genes can’t be selected at all. Mutation of existing genes is an important element in the longer term.
I seem to have read a lot of these ‘evolution happens faster than we think’ stories recently (I’m a subscriber to New Scientist). It seems to me that the rate-limiting step in most evolution is geological, ie organisms changing to adapt to geological change. This is inevitably slow and doesn’t tell imply that evolution has to be that slow.
I don’t think we needed to spend taxpayers’ money to show something that any sentient person with a grade school education knows anyway.
I am sure I remember a story of an Eskimo living in the Australian desert?
As I recall my upper division genetics classes (it’s a long story…) you get maximum response to strong selective pressure in 30 generations, but can get significant response in far less, even single digits like 3 and 5.
One example: Plague resistance. There is rather fascinating evidence for a dramatic increase in genetic resistance to plague in Europe. In one village, pretty much everyone has the ‘enhancement’. Those who didn’t, died. So the odds of another pandemic of Plague hitting Europe is dramatically reduced as the people evolved in terms of population genetics in the last plague…
It’s also quite common for animal breeders to come up with a new variety in just a couple of generations, then work to stabilize it for a few more. I’ve got a ‘giant green bean’ that I’m trying to stabilize. Took me 2 generations to make it, and I’m in F3 now. I’m adding ‘purple pod’ to it and expect to have a “giant purple pod” inside 5 years. Then comes the hard part… the “giant sport” had a bit of string in the pod, so I have to breed that out of it once I’ve stabilized it. I also got a ‘large purple collards’ in 2 years via a kale, purple cabbage crossing program (they are rather promiscuous … those cabbage relatives). The “Green Glaze” collard came out of a similar cabbage / kale cross. One cross, then stabilize.
The notion that it takes thousands of years to change is just wrong. IIRC, the polar bear is only 25,000 years old (it will still hybridize with the Grizzly) so it went from brown to white and developed a significantly different body shape, aquatic adaptations, different paw and claw shape, and several other highly specialized traits to the point of being a different species in the course of small thousands of years. So you can adapt A species in far less than that.
Heck, just look at the dog breeds around today. Most of them did not exist 1000 years ago. Or even a few hundred…
One last point: The selective pressures for skin color are known and measured. For white skin, you die of skin cancer in the tropical sun, but not under Northern clouds wearing a coat. For black skin you die of rickets in the north wearing coats, but don’t die of skin cancer nearly so much in the tropical sun. At the end of the calculation, if you put blacks in the far north, and whites in the tropics, they each swap skin color in about 25,000 years. (Assuming no vit D pills and no sunscreen…). And that is from a relatively minor selective pressure. (After all, we are not all dropping like flies from living in highly mixed societies…). If you up the pressure, as stated above, you get rapid response in about 30 generations. Call it 900 years.
Genetics are far more plastic than most folks seem to think.
BTW, that 30 generations rule of thumb is relatively constant across all species. That’s why bacteria develop drug resistance so quickly. 30 generations is no time at all, so one guy doesn’t finish his antibiotics and we’ve just had a very strong selection for a drug resistant strain…
““Scientific models have suggested that climate change could result in both a general, gradual increase of average temperatures and an increase in extreme temperatures,” says Barrett, who received his PhD last week.”
Temperatures will go up but so will variation….
Butt covering exercise??
My brother and I were born and raised from many generations of people living in Cumbria, England. Whilst a beautiful location, it is largely cold and wet. I have stayed in Cumbria whereas my brother has relocated to Los Angeles, California. The average temperature difference and relative wetness of Los Angeles is a LOT different from Cumbria.
How on earth can he possibly survive average temperatures approximately 10 Fahrenheit degrees higher and air that is much drier than that which he is genetically pre-disposed to living in?
OMG!!! He will surely become extinct!!!
Sarc off!
Seems I saw somewhere an article or show or something where salmon go from ocean to freshwater streams like all the time…
http://www.oregonlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2010/08/sockeye_salmon_run_sets_record.html#incart_hbx
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/global-sea-surface-temperature-update-the-cooling-continues/
I wonder if there is a connection?
This is an entirely expected result for those with an understanding of natural selection processes and their evolutionary significance. EM Smith has a typical example demonstrated above. Fish and other poikilothermic (homeostasis directly keyed to ambient temp) species are especially positioned to be impacted by temperature pressures, and especially true for egg-layers. Egg maturation and development will proceed under a narrow temperature pressure due to the water environment they live in.
Over time, the tolerance to variation is generally narrowed by selection to the typically range of environmental tempature in which they’ll hatch and survive. In any one breeding season, variation in temperature regimes will select for those eggs which can mature in the pressure of the variation. If the selection pressure is not so great as to reduce the species fecundity below its replacement rate, and if the pressure remains constant over several generations, the population will select for adaptation to the new pressure regime over time.
Species have evolved adaptation plasticity over millenia such that generally any one selection pressure doesn’t compromise the species, unless its extreme. Water environments tend to present narrow environmental selection pressures. Consequently, poikilotherms are readily adaptable within narrow limits, but are particularly susceptible to large persistent extremes. Given time and modestly low rate selection pressures, poikilotherms have evolved innovative adaptations – burrowing amphibs, reptiles and fish, fins with enough structure to permit movement on land, etc.
Evolution is ALL about fecundity. If your species has enough of it to survive the selection pressure du jour, your tribe will live to continue to pursue the biological imperative to reproduce. If not, que sera, sera.
It was a long slow creep out of the ooze, but here we are!
@EM Smith:
“It’s also quite common for animal breeders to come up with a new variety in just a couple of generations, then work to stabilize it for a few more.”
Great post. Good to be reminded that we already KNOW that genetics can shift dramatically,quickly, via human guidance. Why should anyone assume that natural selection is limited to changes on the order of 100k years? If that were the case, the world would surely be devoid of life after various ice ages, meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, etc, etc, etc.
How do humans survive migrating from NY to FL every year?
“Ross Jackson says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:39 am
What nonsense. There is no possibility of “evolution” in three years. ”
Which is itself nonsense. Physical adaptation (which produces evolutionary changes over time) to environmental and climate changes are quickly produced by all species with sufficient genetic inheritance. A human can gain 20 pounds of muscle tissue in a month if environmental forces or lifestyle changes apply enough pressure to the human body. A human can go from a fair complexion to a dark complexion in a week to protect the skin. A human who moves to a humid tropical environment will lose much weight and bone density over time in order to keep the body cooler. These adaptions alone are more impressive than what these fish in the article have done, yet are every day occurrences for us.
Global warming Lysenko grant money story the Jour.
Here is another story about fish which were not able to adapt to the resent cold wave in Amazonas. OK it weather not climate. Or is it?
The previous wave, apart from killing many people and livestock, also killed of fish in the tropical Amazonian part of Bolivia.
The recent cold wave two weeks ago caused havoc and an environment disaster in many rivers in the tropical part of Bolivia. All the dead fish are now a hazard as they pollute rivers over large areas.
6 million of dead fish floating on the rivers in Bolivia!
A second blast of Antarctic polar air is now hitting South America, again causing extreme cold in Argentina, Southern Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.
And the same area is expected to see similar low temperatures again in the coming days.
Are these guys aiming for an IG-“that cannot, or should not, be reproduced”-nobel price?
Wich reminds me that the one for Climatology is long over due.
Maybe I don’t understand evolution well enough but I would have concluded that evolution is what produced the fish genetics that respond to temperature change. I.E. the fish are not evolving at all because they already did that long ago over millions of years to produce the fish genes that can tolerate/survive the rate and or amount of temperature, (or take your pick – acidity, evolving predator, oxygen level, food resource, etc.). Finches regularly switch back and forth between two different beak types based upon a food source that flips back and forth, (I think it was Darwin himself who observed that on some island?) Such isn’t an “evolutionary response” in itself , it’s an evolved ability to quickly adapt within a given environmental envelope.
To push the evolution envelope you’d have to find the temperature rate of change “X” that causes them all to die then back off to value “Y” just lessened enough so only a very small percentage survive. The next generation from them or dozens more later will have some variability and among them there might be a few who can survive “X” – or there might not be any. Life maximizes its possibilities for success but, as dinosaurs will attest, there are real limits.