King penguin demography since the last glaciation inferred from genome-wide data.

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Main Authors: Trucchi, Emiliano, Gratton, Paolo, Whittington, Jason D, Cristofari, Robin, Le Maho, Yvon, Stenseth, Nils Chr, Le Bohec, Céline
• Other Authors: Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), Department of Biosciences Oslo, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Oslo, University of Oslo (UiO)-University of Oslo (UiO)-Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Oslo, University of Oslo (UiO)-University of Oslo (UiO), Department of Biology, University of Rome "Tor Vergeta", Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie (DEPE-IPHC), Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC), Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre Scientifique de Monaco, IPEV (programme 137);CNRS (Programme Zone Atelier de Recherches sur l'Environnement Antarctique et Subantarctique);Fondation de France/Fondation Ars Cuttoli;Marie Curie Intra European FellowshipsFP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008, European Commission; project no. 235962 to C.L.B. and FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2010, European Commission; project no. 252252 to E.T.)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: antarctica; coalescence; restriction site-associated DNA sequencing; last glacial maximum; seabirds; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; EPICA; ice core
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01015210; https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.0528

International audience How natural climate cycles, such as past glacial/interglacial patterns, have shaped species distributions at the high-latitude regions of the Southern Hemisphere is still largely unclear. Here, we show how the post-glacial warming following the Last Glacial Maximum (ca 18 000 years ago), allowed the (re)colonization of the fragmented sub-Antarctic habitat by an upper-level marine predator, the king penguin Aptenodytes patagonicus. Using restriction site-associated DNA sequencing and standard mitochondrial data, we tested the behaviour of subsets of anonymous nuclear loci in inferring past demography through coalescent-based and allele frequency spectrum analyses. Our results show that the king penguin population breeding on Crozet archipelago steeply increased in size, closely following the Holocene warming recorded in the Epica Dome C ice core. The following population growth can be explained by a threshold model in which the ecological requirements of this species (year-round ice-free habitat for breeding and access to a major source of food such as the Antarctic Polar Front) were met on Crozet soon after the Pleistocene/Holocene climatic transition.