laguna
Well-known member
Pathogen-induced rapid evolution in a vertebrate life-history trait.
According to an article I read in New Scientist and cited in Royal Society's biological research journal.
Perch in Lake Windermere used to live to a ripe old age. While the average age of fish caught and released by researchers was around 5 years, a few individuals were as old as 20. Then in 1976, an unidentified disease wiped out 99 per cent of adult fish and continued to preferentially kill older fish for years afterwards. Since then, no fish older than 7 have been caught.
According to Jan Ohlberger of the University of Oslo, Norway, the perch (Perca fluviatilis) evolved very quickly in response. They now become sexually mature at an earlier age, which increases their chances of breeding before they get killed by the disease Pathogen-induced rapid evolution in a vertebrate life-history trait (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, vol 278, p 35).
Anything that kills a significant proportion of a population has the potential to bring about very fast evolution.
Ohlberger points out that the long-running capture-and-release programme at Lake Windermere, which began in 1943 and just happened to coincide with the disease outbreak in perch, is pretty unique. In most cases we know too little about what populations were like before disease outbreaks to be able to tell if and how they have evolved in response.
According to an article I read in New Scientist and cited in Royal Society's biological research journal.
Perch in Lake Windermere used to live to a ripe old age. While the average age of fish caught and released by researchers was around 5 years, a few individuals were as old as 20. Then in 1976, an unidentified disease wiped out 99 per cent of adult fish and continued to preferentially kill older fish for years afterwards. Since then, no fish older than 7 have been caught.
According to Jan Ohlberger of the University of Oslo, Norway, the perch (Perca fluviatilis) evolved very quickly in response. They now become sexually mature at an earlier age, which increases their chances of breeding before they get killed by the disease Pathogen-induced rapid evolution in a vertebrate life-history trait (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, vol 278, p 35).
Anything that kills a significant proportion of a population has the potential to bring about very fast evolution.
Ohlberger points out that the long-running capture-and-release programme at Lake Windermere, which began in 1943 and just happened to coincide with the disease outbreak in perch, is pretty unique. In most cases we know too little about what populations were like before disease outbreaks to be able to tell if and how they have evolved in response.