Science paper on convergent adaptation to climate

Post date: Sep 23, 2016 7:32:03 PM

Local adaptation occurs when individuals are adapted to the climate in their home population. Distantly related species aren't expected to use the same genes to adapt to climate. A large team of collaborators on the AdapTree project, including myself (Dr. L), unexpectedly found that distantly related conifers use many of the same genes to adapt to climate. What's more, many of these genes had been duplicated in one of the lineages, highlighting the possibility that duplicated genes may be more flexible in their evolution because of reduced constraints on function.

Yeaman SY+, Hodgins KA+, Lotterhos KE, H Suren, S Nadeau, JC Degner, KA Nurkowski, P Smets, T Wang, LK Gray, KJ Liepe, A Hamann, JA Holliday, MC Whitlock, LH Rieseberg, SN Aitken. Convergent local adaptation to climate in distantly related conifers. Science, 353:1431-1433. 

[Science Perspective by Angela Hancock]

[Press]