Adaptation and Evolution in Changing Environments
In a planet in continuous change, where humans and their activities have enhanced this modification’s rate, wildlife had to develop mechanisms to cope with this change to avoid extinction. The challenges imposed by agricultural landscapes, often associate
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Adaptation and Evolution in Changing Environments Luís Miguel Rosalino, Luciano M. Verdade and Maria Carolina Lyra-Jorge
Abstract In a planet in continuous change, where humans and their activities have enhanced this modification’s rate, wildlife had to develop mechanisms to cope with this change to avoid extinction. The challenges imposed by agricultural landscapes, often associated with production cycles and intensification, has led to the extinction of many populations or species unable to track resources or change their behavioral or biological processes to allow them to use the available resources. However, not always the story has a negative outcome. In the present chapter, we present several examples of acclimation and adaptation processes of species trying to survive in changing environments, which include morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptations (i.e., with genetic implications) and behavioral acclimations. However, there is a threshold of changes that a species may manage to overcome. This limit is species specific and directly related to the species natural history, plasticity and genetic structure and diversity.
L. M. Rosalino (*) Centro de Biologia Ambiental—Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa, Universidade de Lisboa, Ed. 2, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] L. M. Rosalino Laboratório de Ecologia Isotópica, CENA/Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 96, Piracicaba, SP 13416-000, Brazil L. M. Verdade Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 96, Piracicaba, SP 13416-000, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] M. C. Lyra-Jorge Curso de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade de Santo Amaro, Rua Prof. Eneas de Siqueira Neto, 340, São Paulo, SP 04829-300, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]
L. M. Verdade et al. (eds.), Applied Ecology and Human Dimensions in Biological Conservation, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-54751-5_4, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
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4.1 Wildlife Challenges in Changing Environments Throughout the history of the planet Earth, life has been shaped by the interaction between abiotic or physical (e.g., patterns of water and air circulation, movement of tectonic plates, solar radiation) and biotic (e.g., inter- and intraspecific relations) factors. Although changes have been occurring since life exists, conservation biology has been mostly concerned about those anthropic changes (i.e., directly related to humans’ presence or their activities) that may affect biodiversity in general and species and/or population in particular, inducing habitat destruction, species extinction, and populations’ decline (Caro 2007). To achieve their goals, conservation biologists aim to identify the threatening processes that cause d etrimental effects on the population and species survival, abundance, distribution, and evolution (Lindenmayer and Burgman 2005). The most commonly recognized anthropic threatening processes are habitat destruction (Travis 2003), competition with invasiv
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