The paper by Juha Merila and Andrew P. Hendry reviews the challenges and methods used to infer genetic and plastic responses to climate change in natural populations. The authors highlight three main issues: distinguishing between genetically based and phenotypically plastic changes, determining whether changes are adaptive, and identifying climate change as the specific causal agent. They discuss various approaches to address these issues, including animal model analyses, common-garden studies, experimental manipulations, and molecular genetic approaches. The paper emphasizes the need for a combination of methods to robustly infer genetic and plastic effects and the adaptive significance of phenotypic changes. It concludes that while evidence for genetic adaptation to climate change is limited, more studies employing better inferential methods are needed to draw general conclusions. The authors hope that their review will inspire future research and provide guidelines for best practices in this field.The paper by Juha Merila and Andrew P. Hendry reviews the challenges and methods used to infer genetic and plastic responses to climate change in natural populations. The authors highlight three main issues: distinguishing between genetically based and phenotypically plastic changes, determining whether changes are adaptive, and identifying climate change as the specific causal agent. They discuss various approaches to address these issues, including animal model analyses, common-garden studies, experimental manipulations, and molecular genetic approaches. The paper emphasizes the need for a combination of methods to robustly infer genetic and plastic effects and the adaptive significance of phenotypic changes. It concludes that while evidence for genetic adaptation to climate change is limited, more studies employing better inferential methods are needed to draw general conclusions. The authors hope that their review will inspire future research and provide guidelines for best practices in this field.