Data from: Ecological disturbance influences adaptive divergence despite high gene flow in golden perch (Macquaria ambigua): implications for management and resilience to climate change

Populations that are adaptively divergent but maintain high gene flow may
have greater resilience to environmental change as gene flow allows the
spread of alleles that have already been tested elsewhere. In addition,
populations naturally subjected to ecological disturbance may already hold
resilience to future environmental change. Confirming this necessitates
ecological genomic studies of high dispersal, generalist species. Here we
perform one such study on golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) in the
Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), Australia using a genome-wide SNP dataset. The
MDB spans across arid to wet and temperate to sub-tropical environments,
with low to high ecological disturbance in the form of low to high
hydrological variability. We found high gene flow across the basin and
three populations with low neutral differentiation. Genotype-environment
association analyses detected adaptive divergence predominantly linked to
an arid region with highly variable riverine flow, and candidate loci
included functions related to fat storage, stress and molecular or tissue
repair. The high connectivity of golden perch in the MDB will likely allow
locally adaptive traits in its most arid and hydrologically variable
environment to spread and be selected in localities that are predicted to
become arid and hydrologically variable in future climates. High
connectivity in golden perch is likely due to their generalist life
history and efforts of fisheries management. Our study adds to growing
evidence of adaptation in the face of gene flow, and highlights the
importance of considering ecological disturbance and adaptive divergence
in biodiversity management.