Rapid evolutionary responses of life history traits to different experimentally-induced pollutions in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Anthropogenic disturbances can lead to intense selection pressures on traits and very rapid evolutionary changes. Evolutionary responses to environmental changes, in turn, reflect changes in the genetic structure of the traits, accompanied by a reduction of evolutionary potential of the populations under selection. Assessing the effects of pollutants on the evolutionary responses and on the genetic structure of populations is thus important to understanding the mechanisms that entail specialization to novel environmental conditions or resistance to novel stressors.

Results

Using an experimental evolution approach we exposed Caenorhabditis elegans populations to uranium, salt and alternating uranium-salt environments over 22 generations. We analyzed the changes in

SUBMITTER: Dutilleul M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4272515 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature