Carla M. Sgrò

Bio: Carla M. Sgrò is an academic researcher from Monash University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Population & Genetic variation. The author has an hindex of 38, co-authored 113 publications receiving 8185 citations. Previous affiliations of Carla M. Sgrò include Monash University, Clayton campus & University of Melbourne.

Climate change and evolutionary adaptation

Abstract: Evolutionary adaptation can be rapid and potentially help species counter stressful conditions or realize ecological opportunities arising from climate change. The challenges are to understand when evolution will occur and to identify potential evolutionary winners as well as losers, such as species lacking adaptive capacity living near physiological limits. Evolutionary processes also need to be incorporated into management programmes designed to minimize biodiversity loss under rapid climate change. These challenges can be met through realistic models of evolutionary change linked to experimental data across a range of taxa.

Assessing the benefits and risks of translocations in changing environments : a genetic perspective

Abstract: Translocations are being increasingly proposed as a way of conserving biodiversity, particularly in the management of threatened and keystone species, with the aims of maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function under the combined pressures of habitat fragmentation and climate change. Evolutionary genetic considerations should be an important part of translocation strategies, but there is often confusion about concepts and goals. Here, we provide a classification of translocations based on specific genetic goals for both threatened species and ecological restoration, separating targets based on ‘genetic rescue’ of current population fitness from those focused on maintaining adaptive potential. We then provide a framework for assessing the genetic benefits and risks associated with translocations and provide guidelines for managers focused on conserving biodiversity and evolutionary processes. Case studies are developed to illustrate the framework.

Building evolutionary resilience for conserving biodiversity under climate change

Abstract: Evolution occurs rapidly and is an ongoing process in our environments. Evolutionary principles need to be built into conservation efforts, particularly given the stressful conditions organisms are increasingly likely to experience because of climate change and ongoing habitat fragmentation. The concept of evolutionary resilience is a way of emphasizing evolutionary processes in conservation and landscape planning. From an evolutionary perspective, landscapes need to allow in situ selection and capture high levels of genetic variation essential for responding to the direct and indirect effects of climate change. We summarize ideas that need to be considered in planning for evolutionary resilience and suggest how they might be incorporated into policy and management to ensure that resilience is maintained in the face of environmental degradation.

Fundamental Evolutionary Limits in Ecological Traits Drive Drosophila Species Distributions

Abstract: Species that are habitat specialists make up much of biodiversity, but the evolutionary factors that limit their distributions have rarely been considered. We show that in Drosophila, narrow and wide ranges of desiccation and cold resistance are closely associated with the distributions of specialist and generalist species, respectively. Furthermore, our data show that narrowly distributed tropical species consistently have low means and low genetic variation for these traits as compared with those of widely distributed species after phylogenetic correction. These results are unrelated to levels of neutral variation. Thus, specialist species may simply lack genetic variation in key traits, limiting their ability to adapt to conditions beyond their current range. We predict that such species are likely to be constrained in their evolutionary responses to future climate changes.

Genetic correlations, tradeoffs and environmental variation

Abstract: Negative genetic correlations among traits are often used as evidence for tradeoffs that can influence evolutionary trajectories in populations. While there may be evidence for negative correlations within a particular environment, genetic correlations can shift when populations encounter different environmental conditions. Here we review the evidence for these shifts by focusing on experiments that have examined genetic correlations in more than one environment. In many studies, there are significant changes in correlations and these can even switch sign across environments. This raises questions about the validity of deducing genetic constraints from studies in one environment and suggests that the interaction between environmental conditions and the expression of genetic covariation is an important avenue for future work.

Human biochemical genetics

Abstract: So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

Impacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity.

Abstract: Many studies in recent years have investigated the effects of climate change on the future of biodiversity. In this review, we first examine the different possible effects of climate change that can operate at individual, population, species, community, ecosystem and biome scales, notably showing that species can respond to climate change challenges by shifting their climatic niche along three non-exclusive axes: time (e.g. phenology), space (e.g. range) and self (e.g. physiology). Then, we present the principal specificities and caveats of the most common approaches used to estimate future biodiversity at global and sub-continental scales and we synthesise their results. Finally, we highlight several challenges for future research both in theoretical and applied realms. Overall, our review shows that current estimates are very variable, depending on the method, taxonomic group, biodiversity loss metrics, spatial scales and time periods considered. Yet, the majority of models indicate alarming consequences for biodiversity, with the worst-case scenarios leading to extinction rates that would qualify as the sixth mass extinction in the history of the earth.

Climate change and evolutionary adaptation

Abstract: Evolutionary adaptation can be rapid and potentially help species counter stressful conditions or realize ecological opportunities arising from climate change. The challenges are to understand when evolution will occur and to identify potential evolutionary winners as well as losers, such as species lacking adaptive capacity living near physiological limits. Evolutionary processes also need to be incorporated into management programmes designed to minimize biodiversity loss under rapid climate change. These challenges can be met through realistic models of evolutionary change linked to experimental data across a range of taxa.