Genômica da adaptação e vulnerabilidade frente às mudanças climáticas em lagartos ombrófilos na Amazônia

Abstract

The extant genetic variation among present-day taxa reflects a protracted history of diversification and adaptive mechanisms in response to climate change and landscape alterations, thereby exemplifying the outcome of both historical and contemporary processes to the formation and establishment of biodiversity. Understanding how species and populations might be affected or respond to global climate change can provide valuable information for conservation strategies in the face of impending impacts. Here, we use a spatially explicit context multi-framework approach to investigate how a lizard species is or will be adapted or threatened to current climate conditions and in the face of future climate change. We found nine different populations across Amazonia with a considerable amount of admixture. Genome-environment association analyses recovered 56 candidate SNPs to climatic adaptation, with allele frequencies recovering an east-to-west gradient in adaptive landscape, showing important differences across geographic space. Our adaptive landscape index showed a better interpretation of underlying evolutionary processes, where populations showing signs of local climatic adaptation may deal better with environmental change when facing future climate change through natural selection and genetic rescue. Genomic offset predicts a contrasting pattern, with the south and east portions of Amazonia presenting elevated values of vulnerability to future climate change. Our findings highlight the importance of considering spatially explicit contexts with large sampling coverage in evaluating the role played by environmental gradients on the patterns of local climate adaptation and climatic vulnerability in Amazonian lizards and landscapes.