From Genes to Landscapes: Predicting the Resilience of Ungulate Populations
Résumé
Understanding how environmental change shapes genetic diversity is essential for predicting species resilience. Using large-scale genomic data, spatial modelling, and climate reconstructions, we explore how past and future landscape dynamics influence the genetic structure of ungulate populations across contrasting environments. First, we show how Pleistocene climate oscillations generated strong phylogeographic structure in caribou (Rangifer tarandus), with genetic diversity hotspots corresponding to regions of long-term climatic stability. Second, through spatially explicit simulations, we demonstrate that limited dispersal and topographic barriers have shaped the genomic structure of Northern chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) in the Alps since the last glaciation. Finally, integrating genotype–environment associations reveals patterns of local adaptation and predicts how future climatic changes may disrupt adaptive genetic variation. Together, these results illustrate how combining genomic data with landscape and climate models helps anticipate population responses to global change. This interdisciplinary framework provides a scalable approach to forecast the evolutionary potential and resilience of mountain ungulates and other species under accelerating climate change.