Data from: Winter storms drive rapid phenotypic, regulatory and genomic shifts in the green anole lizard

Extreme environmental perturbations offer opportunities to observe the
effects of natural selection in wild populations. During the winter of
2013–2014, the southeastern United States endured an extreme cold event.
We used thermal performance, transcriptomics, and genome scans to measure
responses of lizard populations to storm-induced selection. We found
significant increases in cold tolerance at the species’ southern limit.
Gene expression in southern survivors shifted toward patterns
characteristic of northern populations. Comparing samples before and after
the extreme winter, 14 genomic regions were differentiated in the
surviving southern population; four also exhibited signatures of local
adaptation across the latitudinal gradient and implicate genes involved in
nervous system function. Together, our results suggest that extreme winter
events can rapidly produce strong selection on natural populations at
multiple biological levels that recapitulate geographic patterns of local
adaptation.