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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richard telford says:
August 5, 2010 at 1:01 am
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.
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Which is why they are endangered in the first place. In terms of evolution those species are on their way out because they can not adapt. All “coddling” them does is prolong the time to extinction.
Rules of the Wild: Evolve, Adapt, or Die.
We now have a couple of generations of mollycoddled supermarket hunter/gathers living in modern cities, who do not have an up close and personal acquaintance with nature thanks to modern medicine. They do not have the hands on knowledge of natures ruthlessness that their grandparents did. In my parents generation the norm was at least one sibling who died before the age of 21. Farmers especially are aware of the rules of nature but the percentage of farm raised people has declined drastically in first world countries.
“Early 20th century agriculture was labor intensive, and it took place on a large number of small, diversified farms in rural areas where more than half of the U.S. population lived. These farms employed close to half of the U.S. workforce…
1900
41 percent of workforce employed in agriculture
1930
21.5 percent of workforce employed in agriculture;
Agricultural GDP as a share of total GDP, 7.7 percent
1945
16 percent of the total labor force employed in agriculture;
Agricultural GDP as a share of total GDP, 6.8 percent
1970
4 percent of employed labor force worked in agriculture;
Agricultural GDP as a share of total GDP, 2.3 percent
2000/02
1.9 percent of employed labor force worked in agriculture (2000); Agricultural GDP as a share of total GDP (2002), 0.7 percent” http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib3/eib3.htm
Greenpeace, WWF and PETA would have been considered insane cults a few generations ago, now they drive government and world policy.
Al Gore’s ‘Law of Logical Argument’ : “Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about”.
The temperature in my backyard pond varies at least 40 degrees F from Summer to Winter and has a healthy population of Stickleback that have survived for 20 years. Moreover, I’m fairly certain that the warmest Summer temp and coldest Winter temps vary, year over year, by more than 4 degrees F. So, without having read the study, it seems to me that Stickleback, as with most species, are hardy, rather than necessarily rapidly evolving.
This may be an understatement, but aren’t pretty much all species on the planet subject to temperature changes of more than 2.5 degrees C? Daily? Monthly? Yearly?
And yet, we thrive.
(We have rufous hummingbirds that occasionally overwinter at 5 degrees F here in Vancouver, B.C., for example.)
Is this story an argument against the existence of AGW, or does it intend to show that we will all be able adapt to AGW (or non-AGW) if it happens to arrive despite the clever arguments on this site? Please make up your mind.
Anyway, we are all sticklebacks, aren’t we? We’re sitting in the same big pool, and it is slowly but surely warming up. Except that some people sit in a cool corner and don’t worry about the rest.
“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.” –
This is what is called a ‘bottleneck’, something not exactly unknown to zoologists. A famous example are the Northern Elephant Seals. So there is no need to doom-monger.
As an aside: having one’s Ph.D. work accepted for the Proc.Royal.Soc. B, while praiseworthy, still puzzles me. I’d expect to see such work published by the Linnean Society. Perhaps there is now such a dearth of funding for zoological/evolutionary studies that Ph.D. theses are all there is. Which, if true, would be another grievance to be laid at the door of the over-resourced AGW ‘scientists’.
This research project and article are just plain awful. The basic premise that was obviously used to obtain funding (that increased CO2 can warm an entire body of water from the surface top to the gravel and affect fish population via this temperature change), and indirectly reiterated in the ubiquitous alarm statement at the end, is wrong. In fact it is so wrong, a 5th grader can prove that CO2 has no such affect on oceanic or river temperatures. Therefore this entire research effort along with the report should be discarded.
Jan says:
August 5, 2010 at 6:15 am
Is this story an argument against the existence of AGW, or does it intend to show that we will all be able adapt to AGW (or non-AGW) if it happens to arrive despite the clever arguments on this site? Please make up your mind.
Anyway, we are all sticklebacks, aren’t we? We’re sitting in the same big pool, and it is slowly but surely warming up. Except that some people sit in a cool corner and don’t worry about the rest.
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The slow warming up is a heck of a lot less stressful to all live compared to an abrupt cooling down.
Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3° C above 20th century averages….
So a 1-3° C temperature change just puts us back to the temperature at the start of this interglacial.
Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception (2007)
This paper states the precession of the equinoxes would allow an Ice Age if “..early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission [had not] prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started…”
If the “present conditions” continue changing from an active sun to an inactive sun we could see Abrupt Climate Change – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
“Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario….
Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earthvs climate can shift gears within a decade….
But the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur…“
Neglecting change towards a COOLING world is down right criminal negligence given we are in the correct part of the Milankovitch cycle to usher in an ice age. This is my biggest gripe with CAGW. We should be studying BOTH scenarios not just warming.
Paul Coppin says:
August 5, 2010 at 3:36 am
This is an entirely expected result for those with an understanding of natural selection processes and their evolutionary significance….
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!
______________________________________________________________
♫♫♫ It’s a long way from amphioxus
It’s a long way to us…
It’s a long way from amphioxus
To the meanest human cuss.
It’s good-bye, fins and gill slits,
Hello, lungs and hair!
It’s a long, long way from amphioxus,
But we all came from there! ♫♫♫
Sorry, I could not resist. It is a favorite from Science Fiction Conventions..
Jan says:
August 5, 2010 at 6:15 am
Jan, the story is about marine sticklebacks being able to adapt in a short time to a fresh-water environment that is much harsher than the one they came from.
You wonder what the story on the sticklebacks is all about, but, as Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
I am sitting in a cold corner of the world (Central Alberta, Canada) where I have seen temperatures go down to -54 degrees F and that our furnace stopped working because the diesel fuel in the fuel tank jelled. A bit of global warming would allay my apprehension of when there will be another build-up of ice about two-miles high where I live. You may imagine yourself to be a stickleback, but I am not.
We need to produce enough fodder for our animals within on average about 91 contiguous frost-free days in our area to be able to feed them for an average of 210 days of the year.
A small lengthening of the growing season means the difference between death and life, being able to make it for another year or to pack up and go. We are not sticklebacks and try to figure out how to adapt to whatever climate change may come our way. Still, I would rather see it warm up a bit, rather than see it become colder, especially with politicians clamoring to drive up farming and heating costs to discourage us from being able to live here.
Gail Combs says:
August 5, 2010 at 6:59 am
“The slow warming up is a heck of a lot less stressful to all live compared to an abrupt cooling down.”
The slow warming may be slow on a politicians’ timescale, but it is fast on a geological timescale. Milankovich cycles are slow on a geological timescale, and out-of-sight for politicians. Of course, both risks should be looked at, but right now the world is warming fast (definitely not cooling). I don’t understand how your comment is an argument not to act against AGW (perhaps if we’re down to early 20th century temperatures).
Anyway, we’re at 0.8°C warming now, which obviously has some noticable effects already (increased number and severity of heatwaves, increased downpours, etc), 0.6°C more is in the system without any additional CO2. And what you call “slow warming” is incredibly fast for ecosystems. The result is weeds taking over, and ruining biodiversity. And in the end, we all depend on functioning ecosystems, not on SUVs.
Sticklebacks may have developed landlocked populations less than 10000 years ago and had an anadromous life history – returning to freshwater to spawn. It is not surprising that a marine stock would fair quite well in a controlled freshwater environment.
Many fish are polyploids- the extra set of chromosomes allows for rapid “evolution”. Not sure whether sticklebacks are polyploids. Salmon (a polyploid) have developed isolated breeding populations in less than 50 years. It is important to note that while salmon have shown that life history and some morphological traits to be very plastic– temperature requirements at time of smoltification and maximum lethal temperature are very restricted.
Anyone know whether the papers 2.5C range cited in this paper is within the temperature range for this fish– if it is- doesn’t really tell us that much.
This is a routine, interesting study of evolution by natural selection. Scientists have long been doing such studies, even before climate change became a concern. Such a study has nothing to do with the causes of climate change, nor does it say much about whether warming will cause extinctions. One of the biggest risks for many species, including both plant and animals, is the range expansion of potential competitors from warmer climates.
Read Stephen Jay Gould to understand that evolution is not a glacial process.
I’ve used his stuff with people (ok, creationists) who argue that since evolution is invisible, we can’t say it’s true. SJG shows it is far from invisible.
confused – is the earth going to warm or not? if the latter this is irrelevant. stop arguing in the alternative.
Sandy says:
August 5, 2010 at 3:00 am
If diurnals increase, it means less H20 available in the atmosphere.
The only way to do that is to cover more ocean area with Ice via a cooling world.
The warming world is the opposite. GCM places square peg in round hole, splinters galore, generating useless information.
GCM operator then has to alter input by fudging numbers to correct the output.
It may be useful to note that the operator of the temp increase model has self-inflicted credibility wounds.
“Only rare individuals that possess the ability to tolerate rapid changes in temperature survive …”
I used to live in a place where it went from -23C to 40C in ONE YEAR.
OMG!!! How could I have survived that?
(It did that every year too)
Do these “scientists” think the fish live in an aquarium with the same water temperature all day long?
Heh. My daughter “fed” our aquarium fish half of a Pop-Tart. The bluegill died, while the Warmouth (goggle-eye) continued to thrive. This was a massive dose of flour, sugar, and who know’s what into the 10 gallon aquarium. After a partial water change and filter changes the warmouth is still fine. This fish came out of a small pond that has seen many changes over the last few hundred years.
(In NW Louisiana, USA) It’s in an upland setting, next to a gravel road that was once a woodland trail. Farmers and loggers used this spring fed puddle to water their stock and selves. It has been dredged many times, the trees removed from around it and is now at the foot of hay meadow rather than surrounded by forest. The pond has dried to a few puddles in drought’s and frozen over for weeks and this fish is still present.
As far as anyone can tell these fish have always been there. The warmouth does not exist uphill from this pond nor in any other pond within 1/2 mile.
It’s not just stickleback that are tenacious and adaptable.
Sticklebacks naturally thrive in a mindboggling range of conditions. Just think a minute about a 10cm species that is native to Italy, Iran, Boston, San Fransisco, and Tokyo!
Jan says:
August 5, 2010 at 7:55 am
Anyway, we’re at 0.8°C warming now, which obviously has some noticable effects already….
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That is just it. The 0.8°C warming is a very myopic view point based on a very short time span of about 30 to 40 years. I lived through the “oh my gosh the temperatures have fallen by 0.8°C” in the late 60’s. (I hope you clicked on the highlighted words and read the articles in the other comment)
Remember the Milankovitch theory is accepted by both sides of the CO2 debate because it has been confirmed by evidence from sea cores. Theory of Ice Ages Confirmed So it is not IF it is WHEN and also whether man released CO2 is preventing the onset of another Ice Age.
One of the papers I linked to said early Holocene temperatures were 1-3° C above 20th century averages. That means the temperatures have FALLEN by 1-3° C from the Holocene max.
Here is 10,000 years of temperature data graphed from the Vostok Ice Core.(Present is on the right)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SsVwd55PJ8I/AAAAAAAABKY/52SrhXN4C3c/s1600-h/Vostok-10Kd.jpg
Here is the Greenland Ice Core graph for 10,500 years (present is on the left)
Notice we are NOT warmer that the rest of the time period (Holocene) and that a +/-0.8°C swing in temperature is not abnormal compared to the 1-3° C swings seen in both graphs.
Now take a look at the longer term Vostok Ice Core graph covering four Ice Ages. Notice we are not any warmer than any other interglacial AND we are running out of time!
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/vostok/graphics/tempplot5.gif
An up close up and personal look at the four interglacials, superimposing all four and aligning them on peak temperature(start), shows only the Eemain interglacial has lasted longer than the Holocene and that is due to a 3000 year stop at little ice age conditions before continuing the slide into another Ice Age. (the graph is copyrighted)
If CO2 is keeping the earth from sliding into a major Ice Age than what the heck are we doing imposing Cap and Trade? If CO2 has only a minor effect on temperature than what are we doing to prepare for the next Ice Age that will soon be upon us?
Ignoring what the geological record shows; short interglacials and long ice ages alternating like clock work is suicide. But the threat of a coming Ice Age was well known in the seventies so one is lead to wonder if the worlds wealthy who meet each year have decided to save themselves and their families and sacrifice the rest of us.
1974 CIA document
mrpkw says: “How do humans survive migrating from NY to FL every year?”
Easy, but how do they survive migrating BACK?
Jan says: “0.6°C more is in the system without any additional CO2.”
Prove it. (Is this the famous “hidden heat” that warmists claim to have up their sleeves? This is just more evidence that climatophrenologists are making this stuff up as they go.)
Pat Moffitt
August 5, 2010 at 8:24 am
Listed Temp range for Gasterosteus aculeatus: 4°C – 20°C! It is found in almost all coastal waters of the Northern Hemisphere, including the Arctic Ocean and the Sea of Cortez. A lot of fish do just fine 2.5°C outside their normal range. Many so called tropical fish really come from rather cool habitats (18°C-20 °C) but are kept in Aquaria at 25°C.
DesertYote- Thanks for the info. Still don’t know what this is telling us. For most fish low temperature or winter kill– has more to do with the condition of the fish going into the winter period, winter habitat availability, predation and food supply than it does with cold water temperatures.
I remember seeing a TV program on environmental health where an inspector told of rats living in ships deep freezers at minus 30oC, they had fur over a foot long! They ate the frozen food quite happily. It cannot have taken them long to adapt or they would have frozen themselves.
Well, I guess there it is but natural that every living creature has the capability of evolving in many ways due to many factors which include combining of genes of various species through breeding process…