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REGIONAL GENETIC VARIATION. “They first embarked on an ambitious investigation into the genomes—the complete sets of genes—of 2,322 great tits from across the U.K. and the Netherlands. They flagged spots in the genomes between the two populations that were most different, which turned out to be the same spots that were the least different among the genomes of individual U.K. birds.” https://lnkd.in/ghWux7x View in LinkedIn

REGIONAL PHENOTYPIC VARIATION. “Biologists have long known U.K. great tits had longer beaks than those in continental Europe, but the reason for this difference was unclear. Now a group of Dutch and British researchers tracked the variation down to the birds’ genes and found natural selection at work.” https://lnkd.in/ghWux7x View in LinkedIn

GENETIC BASIS. “We found that genomic regions under differential selection contained candidate genes for bill morphology and used genetic architecture analyses to confirm that these genes, especially the collagen gene COL4A5, explained variation in bill length. COL4A5 variation was associated with reproductive success, which, combined with spatiotemporal patterns of bill length, suggested ongoing selection for longer bills in the United Kingdom. Last, bill length and COL4A5 variation were associated with usage of feeders, suggesting that longer bills may have evolved in the United Kingdom as a response to supplementary feeding.” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6361/365 View in LinkedIn

RAPID ADAPTATION. “U.K. birds not only have longer bills, but these longer bills are associated with increased fitness. These changes likely reflect an increase in domestic garden bird feeders over the past several decades.” https://lnkd.in/g97gtqk View in LinkedIn

KNOWING HOW TO LOOK. “If we look closely, we can sometimes glimpse evolution unfolding in real time. And often we are surprised to find ourselves directing the show.” https://lnkd.in/ghWux7x View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE picks up on a recent report that Great Tits’ beaks had lengthened in response to British bird feeding habits. And in a very short time. This story in itself is charming. But while we generally think of evolution occurring on geological time scales, there are numerous cases of evolution occurring within just tens of generations, mostly associated with human impact on ecosystems. View in LinkedIn

World's fishing fleets mapped from orbit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43169824 View in LinkedIn

UNPREDICTABLE MAXIMAL FITNESS. “For instance, strains selected for glucose utilization will spawn populations specializing in the scavenging of acetate waste products. Such adaptive changes could spawn niche-specific, “orphan” genes found uniquely in particular bacterial genomes.” https://lnkd.in/djKBnru View in LinkedIn

BROAD VARIABILITY. “The niches created by gene transfer events vary widely in their stability or novelty. Some events, like the acquisition of an antibiotic resistance gene, allow for transient exploration of a new environment, but this lineage may not persist over evolutionary time (that is, this event will likely not found a clade of antibiotic-resistant bacteria distinguished by their shared ability to be resistant to a particular antibiotic).” https://lnkd.in/djKBnru View in LinkedIn

BROOD SURVIVAL ADVANTAGE. “In the U.K. the great tits with the genes for shorter beaks had fewer surviving chicks per year than those with longer ones...although the difference is small this probably means the latter were better able to bring seeds back to their young.” Millimeters count. https://lnkd.in/ghWux7x View in LinkedIn