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. 2020 Jul 1:724:138194.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138194. Epub 2020 Mar 25.

On biological evolution and environmental solutions

Blake Matthews  1 , Jukka Jokela  2 , Anita Narwani  2 , Katja Räsänen  2 , Francesco Pomati  2 , Florian Altermatt  3 , Piet Spaak  2 , Christopher T Robinson  4 , Christoph Vorburger  5
Affiliations

On biological evolution and environmental solutions

Blake Matthews et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

Drawing insights from multiple disciplines is essential for finding integrative solutions that are required to tackle complex environmental problems. Human activities are causing unprecedented influence on global ecosystems, culminating in the loss of species and fundamental changes in the selective environments of organisms across the tree of life. Our collective understanding about biological evolution can help identify and mitigate many of the environmental problems in the Anthropocene. To this end, we propose a stronger integration of environmental sciences with evolutionary biology.

Keywords: Biofuels; Biological evolution; Disease; Environmental science; Harmful algal blooms; Pollution.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Two scenarios illustrating how microbial evolution within a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) can either cause a beneficial reduction in a pollutant concentration (ACE: the artificial sweetener Acesulfame) due to the evolution of catabolism of novel/synthetic compounds, or an unwanted increase in resistance genes in a microbial population due to positive selection in the treatment plant (Figure design by Peter Penicka, EAWAG).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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