Prof. Elena Bužan, PhD, and her co-authors have recently published a paper entitled “Monitoring of species’ genetic diversity in Europe varies greatly and overlooks potential climate change impacts” in the highly respected scientific journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, with an impact factor of 19.1.
Despite the fact that genetic diversity is key to species’ adaptation to climate change, the intensity of genetic monitoring/research on wildlife varies greatly between European countries and also between species. A published study warns that current genetic diversity monitoring programmes in Europe are incomplete and inadequate. The authors therefore propose the identification of climate-sensitive species and their genetic monitoring along a temperature gradient. In fact, research on genetic variability to date has mainly focused on species that are more attractive for funding for various reasons (e.g. large carnivores) but are less threatened by climate change than many other species (e.g. amphibians, some tree species, mountain ungulates) due to their greater ecological plasticity (they are ‘temperature generalists’).
Read more about the study at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02260-0 and in the short press summary.
