Climate change can slash animal gene pools

Climate change can slash the genetic diversity of animals, affecting their long-term survival, suggests a study examining the evolution of two rodent species over 3000 years… [T]he new mammalian study suggests animals may lose the ability to adapt quickly because climate change can cause unexpected shifts in a species' genetic diversity. "The prerequisite for showing some evolutionary change over rapid timeframes is that you need enough genetic diversity to select the particular genes that are advantageous under [new] circumstances," says Elizabeth Hadly, a biologist at Stanford University, California, US, who led the study. "You can lose all the nice tools you have in your toolkit if the climate warms or cools." But the impact of climate change may depend on the species. One of the rodent species’ genetic diversity was severely reduced as a result of climate change, where the other species was less affected due to its behaviour, showed the study.