‘Resource-driven’ selection identified as a purifying selective force connected to environmental nutrient availability

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A pair of researchers at Rockefeller University has identified “resource-driven” selection as a purifying selective force that can be connected to environmental nutrient availability. In their paper published in the journal Science , Liat Shenhav and David Zeevi describe their study of the genetic factors at play as organisms are optimized to face environmental challenges. Martin Polz and Otto Cordero with the University of Vienna and MIT, respectively, have published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work by the team in New York.

Logic suggests that as organisms evolve over time in response to environmental changes , changes to their genomes must occur, as well. But what is still unclear is how such changes to the genome arise. In this new effort, the researchers looked at the way the genomes of some sea creatures have changed to allow them to survive in two vastly different environments: parts of the ocean near the surface versus the dark areas below. The work involved obtaining samples of marine microbes from sites all around the globe and studying both their genomes and the evolutionary changes they have undergone to live in such different types of […]

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