Simplified story
Many species are distributed across climatic gradients and are expected
to adapt locally to climatic conditions such as temperature or
precipitation. Here, we investigate genomic adaptations in a small
mammal distributed throughout Europe (3,200 km) using a multivariate and
multimethod approach, sampling 12 populations and 275 individuals. We
found strong spatial structuring of populations, and identified
candidate genes for climate adaptation. Signatures of environmental
selection were associated with genes mainly related to energy
homeostasis and pathogen response. Understanding local adaptation is
important for our ability to predict species resilience to climate
change.