An extinction event in planktonic Foraminifera preceded by stabilizing selection.

ABSTRACT: Unless they adapt, populations facing persistent stress are threatened by extinction. Theoretically, populations facing stress can react by either disruption (increasing trait variation and potentially generating new traits) or stabilization (decreasing trait variation). In the short term, stabilization is more economical, because it quickly transfers a large part of the population closer to a new ecological optimum. However, stabilization is deleterious in the face of persistently increasing stress, because it reduces variability and thus decreases the ability to react to further changes. Understanding how natural populations react to intensifying stress reaching terminal levels is key to assessing their resilience to environmental change such as that caused by global warming. Because ext

SUBMITTER: Weinkauf MFG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6791547 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature