![]() The findings also have implications for mammals other than rodent pests. This is a good example of rapid evolutionary change over short times for a complex adaptive trait.” “We have shown that the same genes have been recruited independently in two different areas, all over very short evolutionary time. “The big take-home message from this paper is that there is some predictability to evolution, both at the organismal level and at the genetic level,” said study leader Michael Nachman, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and director of the campus’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. The study represents one of the first times scientists have tracked down the genetic changes underlying a complex adaptive trait in mammals, though similar studies have been conducted with laboratory insects, such as fruit flies, and in fish. To make these adaptations - at least in the case of body size - mice in the Western United States evolved many of the same genetic changes as their cousins in the East, showing that evolution often works on the same genes in different populations when those populations are confronted with similar environmental conditions. Yet in that relatively short time span - 400 to 600 mouse generations - populations on the East and West Coasts have changed their body size and nest building behavior in nearly identical ways to adapt to similar environmental conditions, according to a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The European house mouse has invaded nearly every corner of the Americas since it was introduced by colonizers a few hundred years ago, and now lives practically everywhere humans store their food. ![]() ![]() A house mouse from a southern population (left) is much smaller than a house mouse from a northern population (right), even when raised in the same environment, showing that the body size difference is the result of genetic variation caused by adaptation, presumably to cold temperatures. ![]()
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