Exces de fier in sange3/6/2023 Identifying the molecular mechanisms facilitating adaptation to new environments is a key question in evolutionary biology, especially in the face of current rapid and human-induced changes. This sheds new light on the establishment of the native British freshwater fauna after the last glacial maximum. These findings suggest that neutral processes, primarily drift and regionally distinct pre‐glacial evolutionary histories, are important drivers of genomic divergence in British populations of European whitefish. We found cyto‐nuclear discordance at a European scale, with the Scottish populations clustering closely with Baltic population in the mtDNA analysis but not in the nuclear, and with the Norwegian and Alpine populations displaying the same mtDNA haplotype but being distantly related in the nuclear tree. Demographic modelling supported a postglacial colonisation into western Scotland from northern refugia and a separate colonisation route for the English/Welsh populations from southern refugia, with these two groups having been separated for more than ca. Differentiation was elevated genome‐wide rather than in particular genomic regions. Overall, we found lower genetic diversity in Scottish populations but high differentiation (FST = 0.433 – 0.712) with the English/Welsh and other European populations. Here, we used up to 25,751 genome‐wide polymorphic loci to reconstruct the history and to discern the demographic and evolutionary forces underpinning divergence between British populations. The origins and colonisation routes of the species into Britain are unknown but likely contributed to contemporary genetic patterns and regional uniqueness. The European whitefish, Coregonus lavaretus, is a widely distributed salmonid fish species on mainland Europe but in Britain it has only seven native populations, all of which are found on the western extremes of the island. Pleistocene glaciations dramatically affected species distribution in regions that were impacted by ice cover and subsequent post‐glacial range expansion impacted contemporary biodiversity in complex ways.
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