Climate change in high latitude fairy shrimps: preventing extinction through landscape genomics and ecological niche modelling

In climate change scenarios, species become highly dependent on their traits to adapt and survive to new environmental conditions. In species distributed along a wide latitudinal range, selection against immigrants from areas subject to different climate conditions may lead to strong genetic isolation. Genetic isolation minimises the probability of evolutionary rescue, reducing the chances to overcome future climate change effects. In addition, while climate change leads to changes in species distributions, range continuity largely depends on successful migration from the current geographic range. This project aims to combine landscape genomics and ecological niche modelling to predict climate change vulnerability in two fairy shrimp species (Anostraca) from Northern Europe: Branchinecta paludosa and Polyartemia forcipata. These approaches will allow me to detect warm-adapted and cold-adapted populations across the distribution range of the species, characterise these adaptations at the genomic level, identify environmental features that promote population connectivity and evolutionary rescue, and predict future climatically suitable areas and migration success. Project outputs will guide the design of conservation measures that enable the survival of these two fairy shrimp species under current and future climate change conditions. These species account for almost the entire known diversity of high latitude fairy shrimps in the Palearctic, and constitute an essential anchor in the functioning of freshwater ecosystems. Developing this project will drive my training in landscape genomics and ecology, which is essential to route my scientific specialisation towards conservation genomics of invertebrate taxa.