Changes in animal development caused by climate change persist for generations after the initial event, researchers have found in a study published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Global warming due to human-induced climate change is a major evolutionary challenge for many populations. Higher average temperatures and increasingly frequent extreme events, such as heat waves, create conditions of intense stress that can act as powerful evolutionary drivers.
In this study, the scientists conducted laboratory experiments on female fruit flies collected from Spain and Finland to compare responses to dry and cold climates. They examined gene expression and regulatory responses to heat shock, as well as the effects on the survival and development time of their offspring. At the same time, they recorded the same traits in subsequent generations to investigate intergenerational inheritance.
The results showed strong gene responses to heat stress in both populations, but the regulation was less effective in the population from the cold environment. Heat shock negatively affected the survival and development of the first generation of offspring (eggs hatched within two days of the heat shock) in both cases. However, in the population from the dry climate, later offspring groups (eggs hatched more than two days after the heat shock) showed faster growth compared to the control groups, suggesting a possibly favorable physiological response.
Some effects of heat stress on gene expression were maintained up to three generations later, particularly in the population from the dry environment. This finding, combined with the identification of genetic variants in the dry climate population associated with changes in gene expression, provides important clues about how environmental stress can influence the evolutionary process.
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