For four-and-one-half days in January 2010, the Heron Island Applied Evolution Summit will bring together international experts, practitioners, stakeholders and policymakers in the areas of Food, Health, the Environment and Sustainability.
Together, we will
- Accelerate the development of predictive applied biological sciences to address the challenges of global change
- Create unprecedented partnerships for solving bio-based problems
- Cultivate the link between evolutionary modeling and sustainable management
- Foster productivity and the exchange, dissemination and implementation of applied evolutionary biology
Context and Rationale
Large evolutionary changes, typically considered to occur over timescales of thousands to millions of years or generations, have recently been documented occurring over decades or less in natural systems (Carroll et al. 2007, Pelletier et al. 2009). Moreover, human alterations of the environment appear to be major causal agents of these changes (e.g. Hendry et. al 2008, Dairmont et al. 2009). Unanticipated and widespread, human-caused evolution is a major, newly recognized component of global change (Smith & Bernatchez 2008, Carroll 2008). The unexpectedly swift response by the natural world to our perturbations has substantial implications for science, society and policy. Because evolutionary biology is no longer just an historical science (e.g., Strauss et al. 2006, Carroll & Fox 2008), the prevailing models that treat species as immutable or static elements have become obsolete. Many concerns that the global community faces now- climate change, emerging disease, food security, environmental conservation and sustainability- involve dramatic, largely unrecognized ongoing evolution (Smith & Bernatchez 2008, Carroll 2008). As the current swine flu epidemic illustrates, swift adaptive change by harmful, as well as beneficial, organisms, requires new perspectives to accommodate, exploit, and manage evolutionary processes on local, regional and global scales.
We have known for years that insects and pathogens can evolve resistance to pesticides and antimicrobials, respectively. Less recognized is the fact that, for example, overharvesting of large fish has resulted in evolutionary changes within fish stocks such that many species now mature at smaller sizes, with major impacts on harvest. Similarly, trophy hunting and poaching have resulted in the evolution of game animals with smaller horns and tuskless elephants (Dairmont et al. 2009). Moreover, threatened species evolve in response to both injurious disturbance and beneficial conservation practices (Kinnison et al. 2007). For example, marine reserves may select for decreased mobility in fish and other organisms that may be killed and harvested if they leave the reserve. In the area of health, cancer cells evolve in response to treatments (Summers & Crespi 2008), and the novel environments created by industrial agriculture systems are fostering the rapid evolution of new viruses such as H5N1 avian influenza (Bergstrom 2008).
These evolutionary responses by organisms affect our health, economy, agriculture and ecosystems, and may occur over days, months, a few years or decades. The ability of beneficial organisms to evolve rapidly provides us with the opportunity to manage natural systems to maximize their resilience in terms of biotic functions and services. On the other hand, rapid evolution in pests and disease similarly requires 'best practices' that incorporate evolutionary perspectives to minimize damage and reduce counter-adaptation to control measures.
The unexpectedly swift response by the natural world has substantial implications for science, society and policy. Collaborators from the US and Australia, plus other regional partners, will bring together for the first time the pioneering experts in evolutionary approaches to health and medicine, sustainable agriculture, commodities production, and conservation. Together we will explore the options for sustainable solutions vital to development needs in public health, genetic engineering, food production, ecosystem services, natural resources and biodiversity that take into account the evolutionary dynamics within and around us. The intent of the workshop design is to establish functional linkages and collaborations within and among these fields.
An evolutionary perspective yields recognition that such issues as climate change, emerging disease, biotic invasion, and food security are in fact not disparate challenges, but largely biological in nature. The inherent interconnectedness of biotic systems means that they cannot be treated in isolation. Hence the first step toward their long-term management and resolution is to integrate practical approaches in a common intellectual framework. In Figure 1 we present the domains we will tap in designing an evolutionary framework for sustainable responses in medicine, biotechnology, and resource extraction, production, and protection. The scientific and industrial benefits of building such a platform for action are likely to be immense.
The nascent field of applied evolutionary biology is already making significant contributions to health, food security and conservation (e.g., Figure 2), despite the fact that there has been little encouragement or opportunity for experts in this field to synthesize across seemingly disparate topics. Many current evolutionary events share common processes (gene flow, hybridization, mutation) that affect the rate and impact of change. Yet the balkanized nature of scientific disciplines means that these efforts are isolated. For example, there is a stark disparity in the frequency with which scientists employ the term 'evolution' in studies of evolving antibiotic resistance in microbes (Figure 3). Not just a semantic dichotomy, the language reflects a depauperate focus within medicine on the processes that generate medically important antibiotic resistance.
We believe that a multidisciplinary exchange of ideas will produce a significant synthesis and development of new approaches to predict, prevent and manage evolutionary challenges. By bringing together eminent participants from key areas, we will provide a forum for developing mutual frameworks for evolutionary problem-solving in the medical, agricultural and environmental sciences. Ultimate targets are federal, university and industrial scientists and policy-makers, as well as federal, state, and industrial administrators and managers.
The workshop will illuminate common evolutionary solutions to diverse problems. We will introduce evolutionists to topics in need of their expertise, and expose pragmatists to emerging evolutionary paradigms. Consider for example, 'invasion biology', an area in applied evolution that analyzes effects of non-indigenous species in new areas. Its relevance across our themes is evident: in Food- non-eradicable weed populations are a huge economic challenge to agricultural production; Health- evolving non-native diseases threaten humans and other species; Environment- invasive species are of foremost conservation concern because they displace natives and alter ecosystems. Yet, the role of evolution is typically unrecognized because it is not in the conceptual toolkits of practitioners. Industrial agriculture is not managed to limit the evolution of antibiotic resistance and new pathogens (Silbergeld et al. 2008). Haphazard efforts to eradicate invasive plants may destroy rapidly evolving populations of native insects that may control plants better than we can (Carroll et al., in prep.).
Far from being a reactionary approach, 'evolutionary management' holds the potential to sustain biodiversity, design organisms for medical and environmental remediation, and build novel communities to reduce pathogenesis and restore ecosystem functions and services. As the genetic complement to preventative medicine, integrated pest management and bioregionalism, applied evolution illuminates process and emphasizes connectivity between populations and environments. While also useful for the post hoc treatment of 'symptoms', a major advantage of the applied evolution approach will be to help shift the applied biological sciences onto a more predictive platform in which causal processes are managed for sustainability.
