Adaptive Melanin Response of the Soil Fungus Aspergillus niger to UV Radiation Stress at “Evolution Canyon”, Mount Carmel, Israel

Background: Adaptation is an evolutionary process in which traits in a population are tailored by natural selection to better meet the challenges presented by the local environment. The major discussion relating to natural selection concerns the portraying of the cause and effect relationship between a presumably adaptive trait and selection agents generating it. Therefore, it is necessary to identify trait(s) that evolve in direct response to selection, enhancing the organism's fitness. ''Evolution Canyon'' (EC) in Israel mirrors a microcosmic evolutionary system across life and is ideal to study natural selection and local adaptation under sharply, microclimatically divergent environments. The south-facing, tropical, sunny and xeric ''African'' slope (AS) receives 200%-800% higher solar radiation than the north-facing, temperate, shady and mesic ''European'' slope (ES), 200 meters apart. Thus, solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is a major selection agent in EC influencing the organism-environment interaction. Melanin is a trait postulated to have evolved for UV-screening in microorganisms.