The population genomics of rapid adaptation: disentangling signatures of selection and demography in white sands lizards

Understanding the process of adaptation during rapid environmental change remains one of the central focal points of evolutionary biology. The recently formed White Sands system of southern New Mexico offers an outstanding example of rapid adaptation, with a variety of species having rapidly evolved blanched forms on the dunes that contrast with their close relatives in the surrounding dark soil habitat. In this study, we focus on two of the White Sands lizard species, Sceloporus cowlesi and Aspidoscelis inornata, for which previous research has linked mutations in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene (Mc1r) to blanched coloration. We sampled populations both on and off of the dunes and used a custom sequence capture assay based on probed fosmid libraries to obtain >50kb of sequence around Mc1r and hundreds of other random genomic locations. We then used model-based statistical inference methods to describe the demographic and adaptive history characterizing the colonization of White San...