Aufgrund der steigenden Temperaturen wird erwartet, dass bis zum Jahr 2050 mehr als zwei Drittel der Eisbären ausgestorben sein werden, wobei die vollständige Ausrottung bis zum Ende dieses Jahrhunderts vorhergesagt wird. Eine neue Studie ergab, dass der Klimawandel zu Veränderungen im Genom der Eisbären führt, was darauf hindeutet, dass sie möglicherweise überleben könnten.

I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13100-025-00387-4

From the linked article:

Polar bears are adapting to climate change at a genetic level – and it could help them avoid extinction

The Arctic Ocean current is at its warmest in the last 125,000 years, and temperatures continue to rise. **Due to these warming temperatures more than two-thirds of polar bears are expected to be extinct by 2050 with total extinction predicted by the end of this century.**

But in our **new study my colleagues and I found that the changing climate was driving changes in the polar bear genome**, potentially allowing them to more readily adapt to warmer habitats. Provided these polar bears can source enough food and breeding partners, this **suggests they may potentially survive** these new challenging climates.

We discovered a strong link between rising temperatures in south-east Greenland and changes in polar bear DNA. DNA is the instruction book inside every cell, guiding how an organism grows and develops. In processes called transcription and translation, DNA is copied to generate RNA (molecules that reflect gene activity) and can lead to the production of proteins, and copies of transposons (TEs), also known as “jumping genes”, which are mobile pieces of the genome that can move around and influence how other genes work.

In carrying out our recent research we found that there were big differences in the temperatures observed in the north-east, compared with the south-east regions of Greenland. Our team used publicly available polar bear genetic data from a research group at the University of Washington, US, to support our study. This dataset was generated from blood samples collected from polar bears in both northern and south-eastern Greenland.