{"title":"No single rescue recipe: genome complexities modulate insect response to climate change","authors":"Harshad Vijay Mayekar, Subhash Rajpurohit","doi":"10.1016/j.cois.2024.101220","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Declines in insect populations have gained formidable attention. Given their crucial role in the ecosystem, the causes of declining insect populations must be investigated. However, the insect clade has been associated with low extinction and high <em>diversification</em> rates. It is unlikely that insects underwent mass extinctions in the past. However, the pace of current climate change could make insect populations vulnerable to extinction. We propose genome size (GS) and transposable elements (TEs) to be rough estimates to assess extinction risk. Larger GS and/or proliferating TEs have been associated with adaptation in rapid climate change scenarios. We speculate that unstable, stressful environmental conditions are strongly associated with GS and TE expansion, which could be further correlated with adaptations. Alternately, stressful conditions trigger TE bursts that are not purged in smaller populations. GS and TE loads could be indicators of small effective populations in the wild, likely experiencing bottlenecks or drastic climatic perturbations, which calls for an urgent assessment of extinction risk.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":11038,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in insect science","volume":"64 ","pages":"Article 101220"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current opinion in insect science","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214574524000622","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Declines in insect populations have gained formidable attention. Given their crucial role in the ecosystem, the causes of declining insect populations must be investigated. However, the insect clade has been associated with low extinction and high diversification rates. It is unlikely that insects underwent mass extinctions in the past. However, the pace of current climate change could make insect populations vulnerable to extinction. We propose genome size (GS) and transposable elements (TEs) to be rough estimates to assess extinction risk. Larger GS and/or proliferating TEs have been associated with adaptation in rapid climate change scenarios. We speculate that unstable, stressful environmental conditions are strongly associated with GS and TE expansion, which could be further correlated with adaptations. Alternately, stressful conditions trigger TE bursts that are not purged in smaller populations. GS and TE loads could be indicators of small effective populations in the wild, likely experiencing bottlenecks or drastic climatic perturbations, which calls for an urgent assessment of extinction risk.
昆虫数量的减少已经引起了极大的关注。鉴于昆虫在生态系统中的关键作用,必须对昆虫数量下降的原因进行调查。然而,昆虫类群的灭绝率很低,而多样化率却很高。昆虫在过去不太可能发生大规模灭绝。然而,当前的气候变化可能使昆虫种群容易灭绝。我们建议将基因组大小(GS)和可转座元素(TE)作为评估灭绝风险的粗略估计值。具体来说,较大的基因组大小和/或增殖的转座元素数量与快速气候变化情景下的适应有关。我们推测,不稳定、压力大的环境条件与GS和TE的扩张密切相关,而GS和TE的扩张又与适应进一步相关。另一种情况是,压力条件会引发 TE 爆发,而这些 TE 在较小的种群中不会被清除。GE和TE可能是野外小规模有效种群可能遭遇瓶颈的指标,因此需要进行灭绝风险评估。
期刊介绍:
Current Opinion in Insect Science is a new systematic review journal that aims to provide specialists with a unique and educational platform to keep up–to–date with the expanding volume of information published in the field of Insect Science. As this is such a broad discipline, we have determined themed sections each of which is reviewed once a year.
The following 11 areas are covered by Current Opinion in Insect Science.
-Ecology
-Insect genomics
-Global Change Biology
-Molecular Physiology (Including Immunity)
-Pests and Resistance
-Parasites, Parasitoids and Biological Control
-Behavioural Ecology
-Development and Regulation
-Social Insects
-Neuroscience
-Vectors and Medical and Veterinary Entomology
There is also a section that changes every year to reflect hot topics in the field.
Section Editors, who are major authorities in their area, are appointed by the Editors of the journal. They divide their section into a number of topics, ensuring that the field is comprehensively covered and that all issues of current importance are emphasized. Section Editors commission articles from leading scientists on each topic that they have selected and the commissioned authors write short review articles in which they present recent developments in their subject, emphasizing the aspects that, in their opinion, are most important. In addition, they provide short annotations to the papers that they consider to be most interesting from all those published in their topic over the previous year.