| dbo:abstract
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- Evolutionary toxicology is an emerging field of science focusing on shifts in population genetics caused by the introduction of contaminants to the environment. Research in evolutionary toxicology combines aspects of ecotoxicology, population genetics, evolutionary biology, and conservation genetics to form a unified field investigating genome and population wide changes in genetic diversity, allelic frequency, gene flow, and mutation rates. Each of these areas of investigation is characterized as one of four central tenets to the field, proposed and described in detail by John Bickham in 2011. There are multiple ways by which a contaminant can alter the genetics of a population. Some contaminants are genotoxicants, causing DNA mutations directly by damaging the structure of the DNA molecule. These DNA mutations can take several forms, including deletions, duplications, and substitutions, all of which may be heritable. Non-genotoxicant contaminants can detrimentally impact organisms just as severely with behavioral alteration caused by the stress of a contaminated environment, leading to changes in reproductive success. Genetic change at the population level is one long term result of both genotoxicant and non-genotoxicant exposure. Evolved responses to an environmental contaminant are often seen in the case of target species developing resistance to pesticides (including insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides), but they can also be observed in non-target organisms' response to pesticides, as well as in organisms exposed to toxic waste and byproducts of industrial activities. (en)
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| rdfs:comment
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- Evolutionary toxicology is an emerging field of science focusing on shifts in population genetics caused by the introduction of contaminants to the environment. Research in evolutionary toxicology combines aspects of ecotoxicology, population genetics, evolutionary biology, and conservation genetics to form a unified field investigating genome and population wide changes in genetic diversity, allelic frequency, gene flow, and mutation rates. Each of these areas of investigation is characterized as one of four central tenets to the field, proposed and described in detail by John Bickham in 2011. (en)
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