| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
07 Jun 2007 08:54:11 AM |
| Object: |
EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE |
EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE
CO2 Science Magazine, 30 May 2007
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N22/EDIT.jsp
One of the grandest of catastrophes that climate alarmists contend
will result from CO2-induced global warming - which they predict will
be unprecedented in terms of both speed and level of temperature
attained - is that many species of plants and animals will not be able
to migrate poleward in latitude or upward in altitude fast enough to
remain within temperature regimes suitable to their continued
existence, and, therefore, that untold numbers of them will be driven
to extinction. However, there are several things that could plausibly
prevent this scenario from ever occurring.
Number one, the globe may not warm as predicted. Number two, the
increase in the air's CO2 content may confer upon plants, and possibly
animals as well, an ability to better cope with higher temperatures,
as explained in considerable detail in our major report The Specter of
Species Extinction. And third, according to the findings of an
exciting new paper (Franks et al., 2007), climate change may rapidly
impose natural selection on species and thereby cause
genetically-based evolutionary shifts, which may enable them to
successfully cope with the changing climate and thereby avoid what
might otherwise prove an insurmountable problem.
So what, exactly, did Franks et al. do that led them to this
intriguing conclusion? In a nutshell, and with respect to a specific
real-world environmental change, they compared plant "phenotypic and
fitness values of ancestral, descendant, and ancestral x descendant
hybrid genotypes grown simultaneously under conditions that mimicked
the pre- and post-change environment." The environmental change of
which they took advantage, in this regard, was a switch from
above-average to below-average precipitation in southern California
(USA), which led to abbreviated growing seasons from 2000 to 2004,
while the plant they studied was Brassica rapa L., more commonly known
as field mustard.
Fortuitously, as they describe it, they had "collected B. rapa seed in
1997, before the drought, and then again in 2004 from two
populations," a dry site and a wet site. Hence, they could grow - at
the same time and under the same circumstances, in a new set of
experiments - plants that had experienced extended drought conditions
(descendants) and plants that had not experienced such conditions
(ancestors), as well as hybrids of the two; and they could see if
flowering times (FT) differed as would be expected from life history
theory, which "predicts that the optimal FT in annual plants will be
shorter with shorter growing seasons," as were imposed by the extended
drought that occurred between the two times of their seed collecting.
This work revealed, in the researchers' words, that as predicted, "the
abbreviated growing seasons caused by drought led to the evolution of
earlier onset of flowering," such that "descendants bloomed earlier
than ancestors, advancing first flowering by 1.9 days in one study
population and 8.6 days in another," and they say that "the
intermediate flowering time of ancestor x descendant hybrids supports
an additive genetic basis for divergence." In consequence of these
observations, they state that "natural selection for drought escape
thus appears to have caused adaptive evolution in just a few
generations," further stating that "abundant evidence has accumulated
over the past several decades showing that natural selection can cause
evolutionary change in just a few generations (Kinnison and Hendry,
2001; Reznick and Ghalambor, 2001)."
In discussing the significance of their findings, Franks et al. say
their results "provide evidence for a rapid, adaptive evolutionary
shift in flowering phenology after a climatic fluctuation," which
"adds to the growing evidence that evolution is not always a slow,
gradual process but can occur on contemporary time scales in natural
populations," and, we would add (as was the case in this study), in
response to real-world climatic changes.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso
References
Franks, S.J., Sim, S. and Weis, A.E. 2007. Rapid evolution of
flowering time by an annual plant in response to a climate
fluctuation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104:
1278-1282.
Kinnison, M.T. and Hendry, A.P. 2001. The pace of modern life II: from
rates of contemporary microevolution to pattern and process. Genetica
112: 145-164.
Reznick, D.N. and Ghalambor, C.K. 2001. The population ecology of
contemporary adaptations: what empirical studies reveal about the
conditions that promote adaptive evolution. Genetica 112: 183-198.
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Celibacy in healthy human beings is a form of
insanity. -- Captain Compassion
"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
.
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| User: "Server 13" |
|
| Title: Re: EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE |
07 Jun 2007 09:52:02 AM |
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"Captain Compassion" <daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote in message
news:7b3g6318fh32ltvi00effmcocc2ek5cvl2@4ax.com...
EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE
CO2 Science Magazine, 30 May 2007
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N22/EDIT.jsp
One of the grandest of catastrophes that climate alarmists contend
will result from CO2-induced global warming - which they predict will
be unprecedented in terms of both speed and level of temperature
attained - is that many species of plants and animals will not be able
to migrate poleward in latitude or upward in altitude fast enough to
remain within temperature regimes suitable to their continued
existence, and, therefore, that untold numbers of them will be driven
to extinction. However, there are several things that could plausibly
prevent this scenario from ever occurring.
Number one, the globe may not warm as predicted. Number two, the
increase in the air's CO2 content may confer upon plants, and possibly
animals as well, an ability to better cope with higher temperatures,
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!!
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| User: "Top Secret" |
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| Title: Re: EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE |
07 Jun 2007 10:02:22 AM |
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Did anyone watch Colbert last night? Hahahaha..
The Word was global warming .. oh man, good stuff.
'The climate is evolving and we all know evolving means getting
better.'
--
Top Secret
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Secret's Profile: http://www.visual-ecstasy.com/forums/member.php?u=76
View this thread: http://www.visual-ecstasy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59379
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