Encontro Scientia with Pedro Simões (Evolutionary Ecology)
7 December 2023 . 12h00 (Lisbon time) . Room 2.2.21 (FCUL)

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Password • scientia

Considering the impact of climate change on biodiversity it is essential to understand if and how fast can organisms adapt to higher temperatures.

Using Drosophila subobscura as model organism, our team has been studying in real-time the evolution under different laboratorial thermal regimes, to characterize the potential for adaptation to new challenges. Our focus is the thermal response of experimental populations subject to rising temperatures versus their ancestral populations, lab adapted to mild temperatures for many generations. We are also interested in addressing the extent to which populations of contrasting biogeographical history vary in their thermal evolutionary response. With these goals in mind we have been following evolutionary changes in several life-history and physiological traits, as well as characterized whole gene expression changes.

In this talk I will mostly present data on the reproductive output of the evolving populations showing that an adaptive response to the warming conditions occurred at a slow pace. Also, differences in the evolutionary response across populations were found that were contingent on the methodology used. I will discuss these results in light of the evolutionary potential of populations, the effects of different genetic backgrounds as well as the methodology to assess thermal adaptation.