Skip to main content
Dryad

Genomic signatures of rapid adaptive divergence in a tropical montane species

Abstract

This dataset contains data from a study described in the paper: Ericson, P.G.P., Irestedt, M., She, H., and Qu, Y. (2021) "Genomic signatures of rapid adaptive divergence in a tropical montane species". Biology Letters (in print).

The study investigates allopatric divergence and selection in Archbold’s Bowerbird (Amblyornis papuensis), an iconic bird living in a tropical mountain region in New Guinea, using a novel chromosome-level genome and population genomic comparisons.

Our results show that the two populations inhabiting the eastern and western Central Range became isolated ca 11,800 years ago, probably because the suitable habitats for this cold-tolerating bird decreased when the climate got warmer. Our genomic scans detect that genes in highly divergent genomic regions are over-represented in developmental processes, which is likely associated with the observed differences in body size between the populations. Overall, our results suggest that environmental differences between eastern and western Central Range likely drive adaptive divergence between them.