The goal of the Space Adaptation and Evolution project led by @alexa.sadier and @fumimuratani is to provide a platform for studying the evolution of complex life in space.
The past few years have been incredibly rich for astrobiology with the discovery of many potential habitable worlds that could host life as we know it. Some of these worlds, such as Mars and Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons, are promising candidates and are the target of current and future missions. While most of these worlds possess potential habitable environments, very little is known about the evolutionary trajectories that life could explore in these different conditions.
Up to now, the experiments on the ISS have often been limited to:
- Physiological data on adults
- A limited number of organisms
- One or two generations, at best transgenerational
- No mammal has completed its life cycle in a space flight
- Very limited fine-phenotypic studies (GMM, morphogenesis shifts, etc) and multi-generational omics studies
There is a need for multi-generational studies to understand:
How species - including humans - will evolve, adapt and survive long space travel and the colonization of the Moon and Mars
The evolution of alien life in habitable environments that are currently characterized and be able to detect it
Recent advances in evolutionary biology and the experimental set-up now available aboard the ISS have the potential to resolve these questions. We propose to use the paradigms of evolutionary biology (and sub-disciplines like evo-devo) to investigate how life can adapt and evolve in space and other worlds with consequences on long term space travel.
Contact: Alexa Sadier - alexa.sadier@umontpellier.fr
Masafumi Muratani - muratani@md.tsukuba.ac.jp
Members of the space adaptation and evolution group:
@alexa.sadier
@fumimuratani
Agata Rudolf
14 Likes
Will y’all have a vascular biology component? Looking at regulatory evolution over time should be cool. Also a gastrointestinal evolution could go hand in hand with a microbiome/host evolution, especially immune and nutritional changes.
4 Likes
We are re-visiting mouse spaceflight data… but not vasucular component. Host-microbe evolution and barrier fucntion is interetsing. Please let us know if you are interetsed in discussing in mini-AWG meeting. I can add you to our Teams to explore. Thanks! Fumi
3 Likes
Absolutely please do and sorry it took me so long to see this. Still not used to this system.
2 Likes
The next Animal AWG is on June 26, and Walter I added you as an Animal AWG member, so now you find the various Animal AWG info in the Animal AWG Hub - you can see meeting notes, invite link, key emails, all the project, and look up and chat with any members. Here’s the forum-space Calendar with it on it
4 Likes
Hi Fumi, I am interested!
3 Likes
I’m extremely excited about this project.
3 Likes
Could you direct message your e-mail address which I can add to evolution topic meetings? Thanks! Fumi
2 Likes
Sure , it is deeptsin@ttu.edu…!
3 Likes
Totally! I think one of the most impactful way to sell multigenerational studies in space (and/or ground analog) is to show the scope of what can be done on these animals at multiple scales. The impact can be seen at the genomic, developmental, anatomical, physiological levels but it will be easy to look at the evolution of the microbiome in parallel. The design of the collection plan will be key but it’s totally doable: we do this routinely in the field with wild animals to minimise lethal sampling.
4 Likes
@alexa.sadier & @fumimuratani - is there a reoccuring mtg for this Animal AWG subgroup? I could help get a calendar invite setup in this forum-space? 
Progress or somehow I can help you all connect and coordinate?
1 Like
I think it works better if any potential members give us direct messages… or let us know in the Animal AWG monthly meeting. We can add them to our Microsoft Teams. Also, sub-group meeting time often moves depending on other events.
2 Likes
Good to know. Have AWG members been direct messaging you through this forum and/or emailing you & Alexa?
1 Like
I think there were several posts (not DM?), and we added them to our Teams. It works! Thanks for your help! 
2 Likes
Oh good. Thanks Fumi - if anything I can do to help, let me know. 
Cheers! We also heard that ISGP Intl Soc for Gravitational Physiology is in Japan next year! Wish we could go 
Just not possible, though I would LOVE to visit Japan. I haven’t been back since in lived there in 1996!
1 Like
Thanks! That’s good to know. In Sapporo… 
2 Likes
Hi @fumimuratani & @alexa.sadier whats the status on this sub-group? Some people asked me recently, and was curious to make sure I’m pointing the right people your way
Is there a regular mtg schedule?
1 Like
Yes we have a meeting every two weeks on Wednesdays. I am personnally looking for students to supervise for data analysis if some want to do so.
2 Likes
That’s an AWG subgroup mtg then, right? Are OSDR data being used-analyzed?
If so, could you add the meeting to our AWG calendar?
Here is the step by step instructions on how to:
1 Like
No, it’s a metting we organized with Fumy and a few others, but it could be!
I am analyzing OSDR data now (from the raw files, not using the pipeline that introduce a bias)
2 Likes