Bird Ecology Unit, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 65 (Viikinkaari 1), Helsinki FI-00014, Finland.
Nat Commun. 2011 Feb 22;2:208. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1213.
To ensure long-term persistence, organisms must adapt to climate change, but an evolutionary response to a quantified selection pressure driven by climate change has not been empirically demonstrated in a wild population. Here, we show that pheomelanin-based plumage colouration in tawny owls is a highly heritable trait, consistent with a simple Mendelian pattern of brown (dark) dominance over grey (pale). We show that strong viability selection against the brown morph occurs, but only under snow-rich winters. As winter conditions became milder in the last decades, selection against the brown morph diminished. Concurrent with this reduced selection, the frequency of brown morphs increased rapidly in our study population during the last 28 years and nationwide during the last 48 years. Hence, we show the first evidence that recent climate change alters natural selection in a wild population leading to a microevolutionary response, which demonstrates the ability of wild populations to evolve in response to climate change.
为了确保长期的持久性，生物必须适应气候变化，但在野外种群中，还没有经验证的证据表明对气候变化驱动的量化选择压力有进化反应。在这里，我们表明，茶隼的基于真黑素的羽毛颜色是一个高度可遗传的特征，符合棕色（深色）对灰色（浅色）的简单孟德尔模式占优势。我们表明，对棕色形态的强烈生存力选择确实存在，但仅在冬季积雪丰富的情况下。随着过去几十年冬季条件的变暖，对棕色形态的选择减少了。随着这种选择的减少，在过去的 28 年中，我们的研究种群中棕色形态的频率迅速增加，在过去的 48 年中全国范围内也是如此。因此，我们首次证明，最近的气候变化改变了野生种群中的自然选择，导致了微观进化反应，这表明了野生种群适应气候变化的能力。
