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 o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2017-08, Vol.357 (6350), p.495-498
Main Authors: Campbell-Staton, Shane C., Cheviron, Zachary A., Rochette, Nicholas, Catchen, Julian, Losos, Jonathan B., Edwards, Scott V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acclimatization
Adaptation
Anatomy
Animals
Cold
Cold resistance
Cold storage
Cold Temperature
Cold tolerance
Extreme cold
Extreme values
Gene expression
Gene Expression Regulation
Genome
Genomes
Heat waves
Lizards
Lizards - genetics
Low temperature resistance
Natural populations
Natural selection
Nervous system
Phenotype
Population
Population studies
Populations
Seasons
Selection, Genetic
Southeastern United States
Transcriptome
Winter
Winter storms
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.aam5512