EVOLUTIONARY RESPONSES TO CHANGING CLIMATE

Until now, Quaternary paleoecologists have regarded evolution as a slow process relative to climate change, predicting that the primary biotic response to changing climate is not adaptation, but instead (1) persistence in situ if changing climate remains within the species' tolerance limits, (2) range shifts (migration) to regions where climate is currently within the species' tolerance limits, or (3) extinction. We argue here that all three of these outcomes involve evolutionary processes. Genetic differentiation within species is ubiquitous, commonly via adaptation of populations to differing environmental conditions. Detectable adaptive divergence evolves on a time scale comparable to change in climate,…

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  National Science Foundation