Can Evolution Beat Climate Change?

This particular article should be interesting to my students because we talk about a lot of this in class. Not specifically about sea urchins, true, but about the topics that tie into this.  One of the things that we discuss in class is the idea of latent variation, or genetic variation that is not apparent–hidden combinations of genes that can give you an unexpected outcome. For example, two very short parents (like my 5’5″ Mom) could have a very tall child, if the right height genes were present.  This article also talks about how the sea urchin larvae could change in response to environmental conditions in as little as a week.  That ties into epigenetics and gene expression, or how our bodies decide which genes to use (and when).  As oceanic conditions change, they become more inhospitable for a lot of creatures; the ability to change which genes are being used actively (and the latent variation to have such genes in the first place) could mean the difference between survival and extinction for a species.  That’s actually a chapter that we’re about to address in my class: in particular, this sort of ties into the biggest mass extinction in Earth’s history-the end-Permian extinction-and how oceanic life was hit hardest.

So, if you’re in class this term, or if you’re just curious, check this one out!