Researchers have recently discovered something astonishing. Not only have there been changes in polar bears’ DNA, but it appears to have a direct correlation with where they live. Specifically, polar bears in warmer climates seem to have developed adapted DNA in a somewhat new survival mechanism to deal with our heating planet.

What Is This Survival Mechanism Polar Bears Are Developing?

Yahoo News shared some exciting insight from a recent study published in the Mobile DNA journal. This study claims that there were “distinctive shifts in the genes and gene expressions of polar bears living in warmer areas.”

Yahoo shared that the researchers involved in the study were observing different population groups of these bears. During this process, “A new subpopulation of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) was recently discovered in the South-East of Greenland.”

Additionally, what researchers found was that polar bears living in the warmer section of Southeast Greenland, specifically below the Arctic Circle, were “more likely to have highly active ‘transposable elements’, also known as jumping genes.

Jumping genes are DNA sequences that move or copy themselves to new positions within an organism’s genome. When researchers compared the genomes of polar bears living in warmer versus cooler climates, they found that “rising temperatures appear to be driving a dramatic increase in the activity of jumping genes within the southeastern Greenland bears’ DNA.”

Essentially meaning that different groups of bears are showing different sections of DNA changing at different rates depending on their environments.

Why This Discovery Is Important

While this research is fascinating, you may be wondering why you should care about it. This study is important because it highlights something significant: these animals are adapting to their warmer climates. In the study’s abstract, it claimed “over two-thirds of polar bears will be extinct by 2050, with total extinction predicted by the end of this century.”

With that daunting news, perhaps you can understand the significance of this find. With their jumping genes, it is as if these animals have developed some sort of survival mechanism to help them adapt to the heating planet. If we are better able to understand this adaptiation we may be able to help play a role in polar bears’ preservation.

The post Researchers Discovered That Polar Bears Have Developed A New Survival Mechanism appeared first on Outdoors with Bear Grylls.