Quantifying polygenic selection in real-time adaptation to climate change

ended

Understanding if and how species are able to rapidly adapt to climate change is a major and challenging problem of modern biology. Can evolution operate quickly enough? Theory suggests that the genetic basis of most phenotypic traits is polygenic, and evolution can be rapid if it harnesses this reservoir of standing variation spread across the genome - ‘Poly2Adapt’. Recent theoretical advances suggest that the signature of real-time polygenic selection can be identified using time-series genomic data. Moreover, a recent paradigm-shift, framed in the ‘omnigenic model’ suggests that all genes which are broadly expressed, or in general all genomic regions broadly available in euchromatin, contribute to the heritability of complex traits. How can we use these theoretical advances in concert? Benefiting from a unique genomic time-series dataset comprising 1,000 samples from 2000 to 2021, the aim of Poly2Adapt is to quantify the polygenic variation relevant to real-time adaptation to climate change in the King penguin, a keystone species occupying one of the most climate change-impacted ecosystems. Coupling genomic time-series analysis with gene expression and chromatin accessibility data, I will rigorously test the theories of the polygenic (O1) and omnigenic (O2) models, using this information to develop metrics of adaptation potential (O3) for the conservation of other at-risk species. This will be the first study to detect the footprints of real-time adaptation proposed by the polygenic and omnigenic models in a wild species. The objectives are directly relevant to the priorities of Horizon Europe, ‘to tackle climate change’, in particular Mission 1: Adaptation to Climate Change. I will harness interdisciplinary expertise from the host, secondment and collaborators to deepen my skills in evolutionary theory, bioinformatics, and population and conservation genetics. Together, we are well-positioned to employ powerful new approaches to pursue this timely research.