MAKÜ’s TÜBİTAK 1001 Project Investigates the Effects of Global Warming on Living Beings

Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University (MAKÜ) Burdur Health Services Vocational School faculty member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sarp Kaya is conducting a TÜBİTAK-supported project to investigate the effects of global warming on mountain insects.

Supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey under the ARDEB-1001 program and led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sarp Kaya, a faculty member of the Department of Medical Services and Techniques at Burdur Health Services Vocational School, the project titled “Investigation of the Effects of Different Climate Types and Global Warming on the Epigenomes of Cold-Adapted Organisms in Anatolia with Genome-Wide Methylome Data from the P. zonatus Species Group” includes research team members Prof. Dr. Deniz Şirin from Namık Kemal University Faculty of Science and Letters Department of Biology, Prof. Dr. Hasan Sevgili from Ordu University Faculty of Science and Letters Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Sait Taylan from Hakkari University Health Services Vocational School Department of Medical Services and Techniques, and doctoral student Huriye Doğru as the project scholar.

Providing information about the project, which has largely completed fieldwork and continues laboratory work, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sarp Kaya said: “Our study is related to epigenetic changes that play an important role in organisms' adaptation to their environment at the genomic level. The epigenome is a form of genomic programming that changes gene expression levels without any changes in the DNA sequence (such as base changes-mutations) and is termed 'above genetics.' To explain this with an analogy, the DNA sequences of organisms (approximately 3 billion bases in humans) are like the physical hardware of a computer (processor, RAM, hard disk, etc.), determining the system's basic capacity, while epigenetic modifications are like the operating system. They work on top of this physical setup and regulate the machine's optimal functioning according to time and environment. Epigenetic modifications play a significant role in many health-related areas, from aging, susceptibility to psychological diseases, cancer, immune system diseases, and even behaviors that allow us to adapt to different environments. With increasing interest in recent years, the study and investigation of epigenetic modifications have become an important research topic, standing out in many areas such as the development of new cancer drugs, understanding aging, monitoring the effects of environmental stress on humans, increasing yield in the food sector, conserving natural ecosystems, and understanding the adaptation levels of organisms to changing environmental conditions. Today's world ecosystem is experiencing rapid and massive biodiversity loss due to global warming and anthropogenic activities. This situation, which we are facing, changes habitats quickly and irreversibly, breaking the adaptation power of populations to the area and driving them to extinction. Global warming and the associated severe drought especially threaten the Mediterranean basin intensely. Anatolia is one of the areas most affected by the global climate crisis in the Mediterranean basin.”

The Effects of Global Warming on the Epigenomes of Cold-Loving Forms in Anatolia Are Being Investigated

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sarp Kaya, who stated that global warming is most felt in the elevations of Anatolia, noted that the project aims to obtain data for the conservation of mountain forms, which are an important part of Anatolian biodiversity. Continuing his speech about the project, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kaya said: “Epigenetic modifications are an important evolutionary mechanism that plays a significant role in natural populations' ability to produce rapid and adaptive responses to changing environmental conditions. Anatolia, with its biodiversity, stands out as an area that exhibits the characteristics of a continent on its own. The geographical structure, location, topographic diversity, and past climatic processes of Anatolia play an important role in the formation of the existing biodiversity in Anatolia. However, today, Anatolia is one of the areas most affected by global warming in the Mediterranean basin. The environmental destruction and temperature stress caused by global warming will primarily affect organisms confined to the elevations of Anatolia. The epigenomes of these organisms are like sensors that allow us to monitor the effects of global warming occurring in our country. In our TÜBİTAK-supported 1001 project, we are addressing exactly this issue. Anatolia is a landmass with an average elevation (with -1140m) above the average elevation of Europe (700m) and Asia (1080m). The study will seek answers to two main questions based on the epigenome of a grasshopper species group (Poecilimon zonatus species group) that predominantly spreads in the Alpine zones of the mountains in the elevations of Anatolia: the first is whether these organisms are under genomic stress due to global warming, using DNA methylation data obtained from their entire genomes, and the second is what role epigenetic programming plays in ecological speciation models based on the climatic zones of Anatolia. We believe that the results obtained from this study will provide data for the conservation of mountain forms (alpine invertebrates, wild goats, chamois, wild cats, ground squirrels, lynxes, etc.), which are an important part of Anatolian biodiversity. The data obtained will help identify regions and elevations in Anatolia experiencing high ecological stress due to global warming and develop conservation strategies for these areas. On the other hand, we believe that the data obtained will make significant contributions to understanding the role of the epigenome in evolutionary biology and the potential of populations to produce rapid adaptive responses to environmental variables.”

Referring to the methods used in the project, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sarp Kaya said the following about the preferred methods: “The methods used in our project are new approaches aimed at identifying genome-wide selection traces and scanning adaptive methyl variations, which are likely to be used intensively in the fields of medicine and agriculture. Our goal is to establish the infrastructure to routinely apply DNA methylation-based methods at our university as a team in the future.”