Adaptation to the High-Arctic island environment despite long-term reduced genetic variation in Svalbard reindeer

Typically much smaller in number than their mainland counterparts, island populations are ideal systems to investigate genetic threats to small populations. The Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) is an endemic subspecies that colonized the Svalbard archipelago ca. 6,000–8,000 years ago and now shows numerous physiological and morphological adaptations to its arctic habitat. Here, we report a de-novo chromosome-level assembly for Svalbard reindeer and analyze 133 reindeer genomes spanning Svalbard and most of the species’ Holarctic range, to examine the genomic consequences of long-term isolation and small population size in this insular subspecies. Empirical data, demographic reconstructions, and forward simulations show that long-term isolation and high inbreeding levels may have facilitated the reduction of highly deleterious—and to a lesser extent, moderately deleterious—variation. Our study indicates that long-term reduced genetic diversity did not preclude local adaptation to the High Arctic, suggesting that even severely bottlenecked populations can retain evolutionary potential.

Tørresen, Ole K. (author)
van der Valk, TomNaturhistoriska riksmuseet,Enheten för bioinformatik och genetik(Swepub:nrm)tomvande (author)
Le Moullec, Mathilde (author)
Veiberg, Vebjørn (author)
Tooming-Klunderud, Ave (author)
Skage, Morten (author)
Garmann-Aarhus, Benedicte (author)
Wood, Jonathan (author)
Rasmussen, Jacob A. (author)
Pedersen, Åshild Ø. (author)
Martin, Sarah L. F. (author)
Røed, Knut H. (author)
Jakobsen, Kjetill S. (author)
Dalén, Love,1980-Stockholms universitet,Zoologiska institutionen,Centre for PalaeoGenetics, Sweden; Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden(Swepub:su)dalen (author)
Hansen, Brage B. (author)
Martin, Michael D. (author)
Naturhistoriska riksmuseetEnheten för bioinformatik och genetik (creator_code:org_t)

By the author/editor: Dussex, Nicolas; Tørresen, Ole K.; van der Valk, To ...; Le Moullec, Math ...; Veiberg, Vebjørn; Tooming-Klunderu ...; show more...; Skage, Morten; Garmann-Aarhus, ...; Wood, Jonathan; Rasmussen, Jacob ...; Pedersen, Åshild ...; Martin, Sarah L. ...; Røed, Knut H.; Jakobsen, Kjetil ...; Dalén, Love, 198 ...; Hansen, Brage B.; Martin, Michael ...; show less...

About the subject

NATURAL SCIENCES: NATURAL SCIENCES; and Biological Scien ...; and Evolutionary Bio ...

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