They kept a population of Eurytemora affinis from the Baltic Sea in their lab-the small crustaceans swimming in water just as salty as their home range and reproducing through several generations. Lee, Stern, and the rest of the research team studied how some copepods responded to that pressure. “Salinity is a very strong environmental pressure in aquatic habitats,” says David Stern, lead author of the study and a former postdoctoral researcher in Lee’s lab, now working at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center. As their environment changes, they will have to adjust to maintain their body chemistry, or die off. Many copepods (and innumerable other animals) evolved in salty water. Ocean salinity, Lee explains, is changing rapidly as ice melts and precipitation patterns change: “These copepods are a saltwater species that now needs to adapt to much fresher water in their environment.”
“But they’re vulnerable to climate change.”
“This is a dominant coastal species, serving as very abundant and highly nutritious fish food,” says Carol Eunmi Lee, professor in the University of Wisconsin (UW)–Madison’s Department of Integrative Biology and senior author of a new study on the copepods published in the journal Nature Communications. MADISON, WI - Some copepods, diminutive crustaceans with an outsized place in the aquatic food web, can evolve fast enough to survive in the face of rapid climate change, according to new research that addresses a longstanding question in the field of genetics.īarely more than a millimeter long, the copepod Eurytemora affinis paddles its way through the coastal waters of oceans and estuaries around the world in large numbers-mostly getting eaten by juvenile fish, like salmon, herring, and anchovy.
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