Figure - available from: Evolutionary Applications
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Adaptive genetic structure as recovered by PCA (top) and population frequency distributions of differences in pairwise Euclidean distances between neutral and adaptive loci (bottom). In the PCA biplots relationships between samples, color coded by population, are represented for the first two principal components (top left) and the third and fourth principal components (top right). (bottom). A frequency distribution graph of the difference between adaptive and neutral distances between the members of the population and the individuals of each of the other populations (color‐coded). A vertical dashed line at the zero separates pairs of populations that are adaptively similar but neutrally divergent, whose differential distances are zero or negative, and adaptively divergent pairs, whose differential distances are positive.
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Local adaptations to the environment are an important aspect of the diversity of a species and their discovery, description and quantification has important implications for the fields of taxonomy, evolutionary and conservation biology. In this study, we scan genomes from several populations across the distributional range of the Eurasian lynx, wit...
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Citations
... In winter 2021/2022, the lynx population in Sweden was estimated at between 1200 and 1600 individuals (Odden and Frank 2022). Despite this population recovery, Scandinavian lynx retain low genetic diversity compared to other Eurasian lynx populations due to the historic bottleneck and lack of connectivity with the rest of the continent (Rueness et al. 2003a;Lucena-Perez et al. 2021;Mueller et al. 2022;Bazzicalupo et al. 2022Bazzicalupo et al. , 2023. ...
In the face of ongoing habitat loss and fragmentation, examining the genetic effects of range expansion can provide insight into the resilience and adaptability of large carnivore populations returning to parts of their former range. This study investigates the genetic structure of the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) population during its natural range expansion into southern Sweden, an area from which it had been extirpated for over a century. We utilized genomic data from 600 individual lynx collected throughout the recolonization period to assess heterozygosity, inbreeding, and genetic differentiation. Our results indicate no significant genetic structure or barriers to gene flow during this recolonization event, despite potential physical barriers such as lakes, farmland, and human infrastructure. Observed and expected heterozygosity, as well as the inbreeding coefficient did not show significant variation over time or across latitude, suggesting that connectivity with the source population was maintained. Spatial principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis of principal components further supported these findings, showing little spatial or temporal structure. This lack of genetic structure contrasts with the experience of smaller and more isolated lynx populations, which have become inbred. Our study, thus, provides valuable insights into the natural range expansion of a large carnivore in human-dominated landscapes and underscores the importance of ensuring genetic connectivity for successful recolonization and conservation efforts.
How species respond to climate change will depend on the collective response of populations. Intraspecific variation in traits, evolved through genetic adaptation and phenotypic plasticity, can cause thermal performance curves to vary over species’ distributions. Intraspecific variation within marine species has received relatively little attention due to the belief that marine systems lack dispersal barriers strong enough to promote locally adapted traits. Here we show that intraspecific variation is present between low- and high-latitude populations of a coral reef damselfish (Acanthochromis polyacanthus). Co-gradient variation was observed when examining aerobic physiology across a thermal gradient that reflected mean summer temperatures of high- and low-latitude regions, as well as projected future ocean temperatures (i.e. 27, 28.5, 30, 31.5°C). Whilst thermally sensitive, no significant differences were observed between high- and low-latitude regions when measuring immunocompetence, haematocrit and anaerobic enzyme activity. The presence of co-gradient variation suggests that dispersal limitations in marine systems can promote local adaptive responses; however, intraspecific variation may not be ubiquitous amongst traits. Identifying locally adapted traits amongst populations remains necessary to accurately project species responses to climate change and identify differences in adaptive potential.
