Sample interview questions: How do you assess the impact of climate change on wildlife phenotypic plasticity and adaptation?
Sample answer:
Assess Impact of Climate Change on Wildlife Phenotypic Plasticity and Adaptation
Phenotypic Plasticity:
- Common Garden Experiments: Expose individuals from different populations to identical environmental conditions in controlled settings to isolate genetic vs. plastic responses.
- Translocation Studies: Move individuals from different populations to new environments with contrasting climates and monitor phenotypic changes over time.
- Comparative Studies: Analyze phenotypic variation among populations inhabiting different climatic gradients within a species’ range.
Adaptation:
- Fitness Monitoring: Measure survival, reproduction, and other fitness-related traits in populations over multiple generations under different climate scenarios.
- Genetic Analysis: Use genetic tools to identify shifts in allele frequencies or genomic regions associated with climate adaptation.
- Comparative Phylogenetics: Examine evolutionary relationships between species to infer the potential for adaptation to specific climate change impacts.
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