Precipitation drives global variation in natural selection

Climate change has the potential to affect the ecology and evolution of every species on Earth. Although the ecological consequences of climate change are increasingly well documented, the effects of climate on the key evolutionary process driving adaptation - natural selection - are largely unknown...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Siepielski, Adam M., Morrissey, Michael B., Buoro, Mathieu, Carlson, Stephanie M., Caruso, Christina M., Clegg, Sonya M., Coulson, Tim, DiBattista, Joseph, Gotanda, Kiyoko M., Francis, Clinton D., Hereford, Joe, Kruuk, Loeske
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Subjects:
Canada
North Atlantic
North Atlantic oscillation
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1885/247328
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag2773
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/247328/3/01_Siepielski_Precipitation_drives_global_2017.pdf.jpg
Description
Summary:Climate change has the potential to affect the ecology and evolution of every species on Earth. Although the ecological consequences of climate change are increasingly well documented, the effects of climate on the key evolutionary process driving adaptation - natural selection - are largely unknown. We report that aspects of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, along with the North Atlantic Oscillation, predicted variation in selection across plant and animal populations throughout many terrestrial biomes, whereas temperature explained little variation. By showing that selection was influenced by climate variation, our results indicate that climate change may cause widespread alterations in selection regimes, potentially shifting evolutionary trajectories at a global scale. This work originated from a National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) working group (NSF grant EF-0905606). A.M.S acknowledges the NSF (grant DEB1620046); B.C.S is a Wolfson Research Merit Award holder; R.A.M was supported by the NSF (grant DBI 1300426); K.M.G was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); and L.E.B.K. was supported by the Australian Research Council. The data reported in this paper are available at datadryad.org (doi:10.5061/dryad.52650) and as supplementary materials.

Similar Items