To assess effects of historical climate change on northern species, we quantified the population history of the arctic ground squirrel Contemporary climate change is influencing species distributions, with important consequences for patterns of genetic diversity and species' long-term evolutionary potential (Myers and Knoll 2001;Parmesan 2006). Understanding how species responded to climatic variability in the past is fundamental for anticipating the effects of future warming . Repeated episodes of global cooling and warming that marked transitions between glacial and interglacial periods of the Quaternary (the last 2.6 million years [Ma]; Gibbard et al. 2010) provide a framework for quantifying the genetic consequences of climate change.

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