By Stephen Beech via SWNS
A tiny frog may be the key to hundreds of species surviving climate change, suggests a new study.
Puddle frogs show that protecting genetic variation is “essential” for animals to live through global warming, say scientists.
Researchers studied the species, that live in tropical wetlands, to identify genetic variation “hotspots” and places where changes in climate could wipe out populations too similar to adapt.
By analyzing the DNA of puddle frogs living in central African rainforests, the team found that areas of high environmental variation foster high genetic variation.
Scientists warned that if those varied habitats and the frogs that live there are lost, genetic variants that could have allowed the species to evolve to survive the climate crisis could be lost too.
And populations with low genetic variation could become extinct very quickly, as they are unable to adapt.
Study lead author Dr. Courtney Miller, of the University of New Orleans, said: “Generally, the more genomic variation within a population, the more likely they will be able to respond to changes in their environment, such as future climate change.”
Second author Dr. Geraud Tasse Taboue of the University of Buea, Cameroon, said: “We wanted to identify drivers of genomic variation and how populations might respond to future climate change.”
The research team said that if animals can’t find suitable habitats amid soaring global temperatures, they will need to adapt, either by evolving or by making behavioral changes.
The more genetic diversity in a species, the more likely it can successfully evolve to survive.
The tropical forests of the Gulf of Guinea and the Congo Basin are predicted to be particularly seriously affected by climate change. The forests are also biodiversity hotspots.
The researchers explained that a widespread species such as puddle frogs make an “ideal” model for unraveling the impact of those factors on genetic variation, which is critical to understanding species’ genomic vulnerability – how likely it is that they will be able to adapt evolutionarily to climate change.
Scientists sampled 191 frogs across several different locations and habitats, extracting DNA and mapping the occurrence of different variants.
The team then used environmental variables linked to the frogs’ biology and behavior to map differences between their habitats: the annual temperature and rainfall and how much those varied across the year, and the amount of rain in the coldest quarter of the year.
They used projections of how those variables will alter with climate change to model the frogs’ future habitat.
They also used models of the past climate to understand how habitat availability in the Pleistocene period could affect present-day variation.
Combining the data and analyzing it with specialized statistical methods allowed the team to identify the most important forces in driving the puddle frogs’ genetic variation and to determine areas where the frogs would be more genomically vulnerable.
Their findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science, showed that puddle frogs’ genetic variation was influenced by the distance between sites but primarily predicted by their environment.
The research team said seasonal patterns of precipitation were “particularly influential”.
They added that landscapes with multiple types of habitat in close proximity also overlapped with areas of high genetic variation.
Dr. Miller said: “Variation in precipitation is the main factor in environmentally-associated genomic variation for this frog.”
She added: “Frogs that occur within the Cameroonian highlands, the forest-savanna ecotone of south-central Cameroon, across the equator, and from the coast to the interior of Gabon may be more likely to keep pace with future climate change.”
The research team also identified several areas where frog populations may not have enough genetic variation to be able to adapt to “abrupt” habitat changes, including southwest Gabon.
They say that their findings, and similar research on different species, could be useful for planning conservation interventions.
Dr. Tasse Taboue added: “Conservation efforts could focus on preserving areas with high genomic variation, under the assumption that these areas harbor individuals that may be more likely to persist given environmental change.”
