As climate change continues, species pushed outside their physiological tolerance limits must adapt or face extinction. When change is rapid, adaptation will largely harness ancestral variation, making the availability and characteristics of that variation of critical importance. Here, we used whole-genome sequencing and genetic-environment association analyses to identify adaptive variation and its significance in the context of future climates in a small Palearctic mammal, the bank vole (Clethrionomys glareolus). We found that peripheral populations of bank vole in Britain are already at the extreme bounds of potential genetic adaptation and may require an influx of adaptive variation in order to respond. Analyses of adaptive loci suggest regional differences in climate variables select for variants that influence patterns of population adaptive resilience, including genes associated with antioxidant defense, and support a pattern of thermal/hypoxic cross-adaptation. Our findings indicate that understanding potential shifts in genomic composition in response to climate change may be key to predicting species' fate under future climates.

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Corson Hall Cornell University Ithaca NY 14853 USA

Faculty of Biology Evolutionary Biology Group Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań Poland

Laboratory of Molecular Ecology Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Rumburská 89 277 21 Liběchov Czech Republic

Sam Noble Museum University of Oklahoma 2401 Chautauqua Ave Norman OK 73072 USA

School of Biological Sciences University of Oklahoma 730 Van Vleet Oval Norman OK 73019 USA

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Widespread Adaptive Introgression of Major Histocompatibility Complex Genes across Vertebrate Hybrid Zones

Genetic admixture drives climate adaptation in the bank vole

Local adaptation and future climate vulnerability in a wild rodent