Adaptive population shifts in response to climate change

Adaptive population shifts in response to climate change Ing. Michaela Horníková, Doctoral thesis Abstract Understanding of species' reactions to past climate and environmental changes is a hot topic in many fields of biology as it is relevant also for addressing species' future under the contemporary climate change. Using an emerging model species, the bank vole, I combine genomic phylogeographic data with information on known intraspecific functional variability and environmental niche modelling and aim to elucidate the particular role of intraspecific variation and ultimately selection in shaping the species' response to the climatic and environmental changes after the end of the last glaciation. Based on the mtDNA markers, bank voles exhibit a complex phylogeographic pattern suggesting population replacement events during the postglacial recolonization of Europe and thus possible involvement of selection in the process. An extensive dataset of more than 6000 SNPs was used to search for signs of population replacement in the bank vole genomic DNA and to investigate the species' postglacial recolonization history throughout its European distribution range. The genomic data revealed even more complex population history than previously detected with mtDNA markers, including not only admixture but also..