Image: Kurt L. Onthank
A recent article from the Scientific American reports that the Purple Sea Urchin may have a genetic background for tolerating a rise in ocean acidity. Their genetic make up is able to adapt to changes in environmental CO2 in just one single life span. This is a very startling discovery, because they are essentially experiencing the effects of evolution in just one life time. The genes of larvae exposed to higher levels of acidity were sampled, and they showed new versions of genes that were better adapted to higher CO2 conditions. These genes became more common, which is basically the start of evolution. After about seven days of development, the changes of genetic information was very evident.
Although the effects of such short term evolutionary changes are unknown, it seems as though the sea urchins will be able to survive high ocean acidity fairly well. The long term effects of replacing existing genes with new genes is yet to be determined, which makes scientists skeptical about how beneficial the genetic changes can be. Studying these purple sea urchins is going to help scientists figure out what organisms are at the highest risk for extinction due to climate change. The fact that sea urchins have such large population sizes makes it much easier for evolution to take place, so organisms who already have a low population would most likely not experience such rapid evolution. Follow up research and experiments should be conducted in order to find out the real effects of such rapid evolution, and how it will aid the sea urchin populations in surviving climate change.
References:
Biello, D. (2013) Can Evolution Beat Climate Change? Scientific American. Available: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sea-urchin-evolution-to-cope-with-climate-change-ocean-acidification
Pespeni et al., (2013) Evolutionary Change During Experimental Ocean Acidification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. p 1-6. doi.10.1073/pnas.1220673110
Image Credit: Kurt L. Onthank
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