Overview
- University of East Anglia researchers matched Danish Meteorological Institute temperature records with gene activity from polar bears in northeast and southeast Greenland.
- Bears in the warmer, more variable southeast showed younger, more abundant transposon sequences with over 1,500 elements upregulated.
- Genetic hotspots overlapped genes involved in heat stress, aging, metabolism and fat processing, suggesting possible physiological responses to changing diets and habitat.
- The team reanalyzed previously sequenced blood RNA from 17 adult bears (12 northeast, 5 southeast) collected by University of Washington researchers to assess gene expression.
- Authors emphasize correlation rather than causation or species‑wide adaptation and call for long-read whole-genome and longitudinal studies across roughly 20 populations as sea-ice loss continues to threaten survival.