Ary A. Hoffmann
University of MelbourneGenetics
Bio21 Institute
30 Flemington Rd
Parkville, 3010
Australia
Website
Abstracts (first author)
Clinal selection in Drosophila: what have we learnt, where are we going?
Summary:
Clines have traditionally been used to investigate patterns of selection on phenotypes and genotypes involved in climatic adaptation. More recently, clines are being used to test for changes in patterns of adaptation across time. Modern genomic and transcriptomic approaches are now being applied to understand patterns of clinal adaptation at a fine level and to allow new sets of questions to be considered and a new level of understanding to be reached. Here I focus on recent Drosophila work to overview the opportunities and challenges provided by these new approaches and how they can be integrated into the more traditional work. I also consider the ways in which experimental work in field and laboratory settings can be used to further understand patterns of selection.
Climate change adaptation: genetic and genomic approaches in Drosophila
Summary:
It is being increasingly appreciated that rapid evolutionary changes can help species counter the negative effects of global warming, and also that they can allow species to exploit favourable conditions provided in a warming world. There are now several well documented cases of rapid genetic change in response to natural and experimental warming in animals and plants. The genetic and genomic basis of these changes can be understood through comparisons of populations. Moreover, the genes and genomic regions identified in these comparisons can be further investigated through functional analyses on model organisms and along environmental gradients. Because related species often differ in their evolutionary potential, there is also an opportunity to investigate the genomic basis of limits to climate change adaptation, particularly as more sequenced genomes become available. I illustrate the opportunities provided through this framework by considering recent research on Drosophila. However I also highlight limitations of these approaches for predicting the dynamics of adaptive shifts in populations. Ideally genetic and genomic approaches need to be combined with quantitative studies of selection in populations.