Citizen science reveals unexpected continental-scale evolutionary change in a model organism

Organisms provide some of the most sensitive indicators of climate change and evolutionary responses are becoming apparent in species with short generation times. Large datasets on genetic polymorphism that can provide an historical benchmark against which to test for recent evolutionary responses are very rare, but an exception is found in the brown-lipped banded snail (Cepaea nemoralis). This species is sensitive to its thermal environment and exhibits several polymorphisms of shell colour and banding pattern affecting shell albedo in the majority of populations within its native range in Europe. We tested for evolutionary changes in shell albedo that might have been driven by the warming of the climate in Europe over the last half century by compiling an historical dataset for 6,515 native populations of C. nemoralis and comparing this with new data on nearly 3,000 populations. The new data were sampled mainly in 2009 through the Evolution MegaLab, a citizen science project that enga...

生物是气候变化最灵敏的指示物之一，而世代周期较短的物种中，演化响应已逐渐显现。可作为历史基准以检验近期演化响应的遗传多态性大型数据集极为稀缺，但棕唇带螺（Cepaea nemoralis）是个例外。该物种对热环境极为敏感，在其欧洲原生分布区的多数种群中，均存在影响壳体反照率的壳色与纹带多态现象。我们通过整合棕唇带螺6515个原生种群的历史数据集，并与近3000个种群的新数据进行比对，检验了过去半个世纪欧洲气候变暖可能驱动的壳体反照率演化变化。这批新数据主要于2009年通过公民科学项目「演化巨型实验室（Evolution MegaLab）」采集完成，该项目旨在……