Fruit flies on three continents have independently evolved identical genetic changes within just two decades – and they’ve almost certainly done it to cope with global warming.
“Global warming is leaving its imprint on genes,” says Raymond Huey of the University of Washington in Seattle, a member of the team that made the discovery. “For this to happen in such a short time-frame in so many parts of the world is rather disturbing.”
The researchers analysed DNA from Drosophila subobscura from 26 sites in Europe, South America and North America. They were looking for particular chromosomal changes that tally with latitude and, by implication, with ambient temperature.
The result? Changes once found only at warmer latitudes have spread as temperatures have risen further away from the equator (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1131002).