Basic information: Ongoing climate change is affecting animal and plant communities worldwide, posing one of the greatest threats to biodiversity in the coming decades. Increasingly more species are likely to encounter climatic conditions that reach their physiological tolerance limits, requiring them to adapt in order to survive. To predict how organisms will adapt to new climatic conditions, it is crucial to understand their responses to past climate changes. The responses of species to climate change at the end of the last glaciation offer valuable insights because the history of populations, including their adaptations to different climatic conditions, is "written" in their genomes. These can now be studied in unprecedented detail using modern DNA sequencing and genomic approaches. During the last glaciation, European species survived in glacial refugia, primarily in the Mediterranean region, but also further north, such as in the Carpathians, adapting to a wide range of climatic conditions. At the end of the last glaciation, populations from these refugia colonized central Europe, bringing with them adaptations that not only enabled them to colonize climatically diverse areas, but may also help them to survive future climate changes. In the proposed collaborative project with researchers from the University of Oklahoma and Cornell University, we will use the widespread forest mammal, the bank vole ( Clethrionomys glareolus), together with whole genome sequencing and genomic methods available at U.S. institutions, as well as current and future climate models. Our aim is to determine the contribution of different glacial refugia to adaptive genetic diversity in central Europe, relevant to population survival under future global warming.

Registration No: LUAUS25009

Project Duration: 1. 3. 2025 – 31. 12. 2028

Principal Investigator: RNDr. Petr Kotlík, Ph.D.  Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics CAS, v. v. i.

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Basic information: The life of the vast majority of today's eukaryotic organisms depends on atmospheric oxygen, which reached its current level about 450 million years ago. Oxygen serves in the mitochondria to effectively fix energy from carbohydrates and other substrates. However, the products of oxygen metabolism such as hydrogen peroxide are toxic to cells and therefore various redox reactions take place in specialized organelles, peroxisomes. There is a close interplay between mitochondria and peroxisomes, although their evolutionary origin and biogenesis are different. A typical peroxisomal metabolic pathway is beta-oxidation of fatty acids, with most peroxisomal enzymes being of mitochondrial evolutionary origin. In some organisms, this pathway is in both organelles, while e.g. in yeast, it is only in peroxisomes and mitochondria use peroxisomal beta-oxidation products. In addition, mitochondria are directly involved in the biogenesis of peroxisomes.

Registration No: LUAUS23052

Project Duration: 1. 3. 2023 – 31. 12. 2026

Principal Investigator: Profesor RNDr. Jan Tachezy, Ph.D.  Charles University, Faculty of Science

Other solver: RNDr. Kateřina Olša Fliegerová CSc.  Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics CAS, v. v. i.

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