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Adaptation to environmental stress at different timescales

Year of publication

2020

Authors

Kristensen, Torsten Nygaard; Ketola, Tarmo; Kronholm, Ilkka

Abstract

Environments are changing rapidly, and to cope with these changes, organisms have to adapt. Adaptation can take many shapes and occur at different speeds, depending on the type of response, the trait, the population, and the environmental conditions. The biodiversity crisis that we are currently facing illustrates that numerous species and populations are not capable of adapting with sufficient speed to ongoing environmental changes. Here, we discuss current knowledge on the ability of animals and plants to adapt to environmental stress on different timescales, mainly focusing on thermal stress and ectotherms. We discuss within‐generation responses that can be fast and induced within minutes or hours, evolutionary adaptations that are often slow and take several generations, and mechanisms that lay somewhere in between and that include epigenetic transgenerational effects. To understand and predict the impacts of environmental change and stress on biodiversity, we suggest that future studies should (1) have an increased focus on understanding the type and speed of responses to fast environmental changes; (2) focus on the importance of environmental fluctuations and the predictability of environmental conditions on adaptive capabilities, preferably in field studies encompassing several fitness components; and (3) look at ecosystem responses to environmental stress and their resilience when disturbed.
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Organizations and authors

University of Jyväskylä

Kronholm Ilkka Orcid -palvelun logo

Ketola Tarmo Orcid -palvelun logo

Publication type

Publication format

Article

Parent publication type

Journal

Article type

Review article

Audience

Scientific

Peer-reviewed

Peer-Reviewed

MINEDU's publication type classification code

A2 Review article, Literature review, Systematic review

Publication channel information

Volume

1476

Issue

1

Pages

5-22

​Publication forum

51271

​Publication forum level

1

Open access

Open access in the publisher’s service

No

Self-archived

No

Other information

Fields of science

Ecology, evolutionary biology

Keywords

[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]

Publication country

United States

Internationality of the publisher

International

Language

English

International co-publication

Yes

Co-publication with a company

No

DOI

10.1111/nyas.13974

The publication is included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Publication data collection

Yes