Adaptation and Evolution

The human evolutionary science (HES) and socio-environmental climate science (SECS) communities both study adaptation but mean different things by it. To HESers, adaptations are solutions to persistent environmental challenges that our species has always faced; HESers usually study adaptations among subsistence populations, who are among the most vulnerable to climate change. For SECSers, adaptations are prescriptive accommodations to new challenges facing interconnected social and ecological systems. While SECSers are starting conversations about climate change adaptation and making the phrase a “household name,” HESers have contributed little to these conversations. Can HESers’ theoretical approach, investigating contemporary adaptations as products of the past, and study of adaptation among subsistence peoples inform SECSers’ conceptualization of adaptation? Can HESers learn from SECSers how to better reach a large audience and contribute to applied work and policy conversations about climate change adaptation?

This workshop brings together HESers and SECSers, as well as governmental and non-governmental-organization stakeholders, with the goals of:

1.  Jump-starting actionable climate-related research in the HES community, especially the longitudinal study of livelihood adaptation
2. Better defining the concept of adaptation in the SECS community
3. Facilitating interchange between the HES and SECS communities.

Anticipated products of this workshop include a call-to-arms paper that identifies what HES and SECS have to offer each other, including a glossary of commonly misunderstood terms and data each community already has that would interest the other, as well as a grant application to fund the longitudinal study of climate change adaptation in a global sample of vulnerable subsistence populations.