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.
Show moreOrganizations and authors
Publication type
Publication format
Article
Parent publication type
Journal
Article type
Review article
Audience
ScientificPeer-reviewed
Peer-ReviewedMINEDU's publication type classification code
A2 Review article, Literature review, Systematic reviewPublication channel information
Publisher
Volume
1476
Issue
1
Pages
5-22
ISSN
Publication forum
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