Resurrection Ecology, Rapid Evoltuion

It is now accepted that rapid evolution (within a dozen generations) can occur, contrary to the classical Darwinian view that assumes slow pace of evolution. Rapid evolution is particularly frequent in response to contemporary anthropogenic modification of the environment (e.g. climate change, pollution), although demonstrating its adaptive character remains challenging. Resurrection ecology (RE) is an inventive approach to study evolution based on the ancestral populations reviving (decades old) from dormant forms (seeds, spores, cysts). Comparing ancestral and current genotypes is a powerful methodology for demonstrating adaptive rapid evolution, although often limited by the fortuitous availability of ancestral material in sediments or seed banks. Being at its beginnings, it is important that good RE practices are established to set up the premises for future studies. This symposium covers various challenges and innovations of RE: 1) practical issues such as constituting or recovering appropriate propagule banks, their conservation, and the limits of available model organisms in relation to their life history traits, 2) analytical methodology (population and quantitative genetics) disentangling selective from stochastic evolutionary processes, and 3) case studies in various organisms illustrating the power of RE to demonstrate rapid evolution. We thus aim at providing insights into RE possibilities, but also inspiring actions for future RE studies.