Tiny time machines: Using experimental evolution to predict how ocean life will respond to climate change

Associate Professor Morgan Kelly, LSU Biological Sciences

Man-made climate change poses a threat to much of the earth’s biological diversity. One factor that may provide protection for some species is the capacity for evolutionary adaptation to changing climates. Although evolution was once thought to occur only over very long timescales, we now understand that evolution is a process that can be witnessed over just a couple years in some species. Dr. Morgan Kelly and her graduate students at LSU use a technique called ‘experimental evolution’ to test whether some species may be able to adapt to climate change. Understanding the capacity to adapt to climate change will help managers and conservation biologists to protect this ‘evolutionary potential’ in threatened species of plants and animals.