Reconstructing the demographic history of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) across its distribution range using Approximate Bayesian Computations

Abstract

AbstractUnderstanding the dual roles of demographic and selective processes in the buildup of population divergence is one of the most challenging tasks in evolutionary biology. In the Northern hemisphere in particular, species genetic makeup has been largely influenced by severe climatic oscillations of the Quaternary Period. Here, we investigated the demographic history of Atlantic Salmon across the entire species range using 2035 anadromous individuals from 77 sampling sites from North America and Eurasia genotyped at 4,656 SNPs. By combining results from admixture graphs, geogenetic maps and an approximate Bayesian computation framework, we validate previous hypotheses pertaining to secondary contact between European and Northern American populations, but also demonstrate that European populations from different glacial refugia have been exchanging alleles in contemporary times. We further identify the major sources of admixture from the southern range of North America to more northern populations along with a strong signal of secondary gene flow between genetic regional groups. We hypothesize that these patterns reflects the spatial redistribution of ancestral variation across the entire American range. Results also point to a role for linked selection in the form of background selection and or positive hitchhiking. Altogether, differential introgression and linked selective effects likely played an underappreciated role in shaping the genomic landscape of species in the Northern hemisphere Therefore we conclude that such heterogeneity among loci should be systematically integrated into demographic inferences of the divergence process, even between incompletely reproductively isolated populations.