Local adaptation and future climate vulnerability in a wild rodent

As climate change continues, species pushed outside their physiological tolerance limits must adapt or face extinction. When change is rapid, adaptation will largely harness ancestral variation, making the availability and characteristics of that variation of critical importance. Here, we used whole-genome sequencing and genetic-environment association analyses to identify adaptive variation and its significance in the context of future climates in an iconic small mammal system. We found that peripheral populations of bank vole in Britain are already at the extreme bounds of potential genetic adaptation and may require an influx of adaptive variation in order to persist. Analyses of adaptive loci suggest regional differences in climate variables select for traits that influence patterns of population adaptive resilience, including genes associated with antioxidant defence, and support a pattern of thermal/hypoxic cross-adaptation. Understanding potential shifts in genomic composition in...