Abstract
Aim Coastal habitats are among the most dynamic environments on earth and are highly vulnerable to large-scale physical disturbance. Genetic studies of nearshore marine species are revealing long-lasting signatures of major coastal disturbance events. We synthesize emerging data to highlight how physical perturbations can impact the phylogeographic patterns of coastal populations. Taxon Coastal marine and estuarine taxa. Location Coastal regions around the globe. Methods We synthesize coastal genetic and genomic literature, focussing particularly on the phylogeographic consequences of natural disturbance events including uplift, tsunami, hurricanes, glaciations and sea-level fluctuations. We focus on studies with clear physical analytical frameworks constrained by abiotic data. Results Tectonic and atmospheric disruptions can be considered shot-term events with major impacts on populations adjacent to the centre of disturbance, typically resulting in the evolution of shallow phylogeographic patterns. Long-lived climate-driven disturbances such as glaciations, however, operate over vast geographic scales and often drive deep evolutionary patterns in affected populations. We show that studies using genome-wide data could better identify fine-scale signatures of both past and contemporary habitat perturbations. Conclusions Recent data reveal the interplay between physical upheaval and coastal phylogeography, indicating that disturbance can affect diversity, connectivity and demography of coastal populations. The interplay between long-lived large-scale disturbance and species-specific biotic traits has shaped deep phylogeographic patterns of coastal taxa. Additionally, it could be argued that, at least for some regions, short-term disturbance is the 'rule' rather than the 'exception', and thus, represents a key driver of coastal genetic patterns in disturbance prone coastal regions. Geo-genomic approaches that combine genome-wide data with explicit habitat models or disturbance history information have been particularly successful in explaining the drivers of coastal evolutionary change. We argue that future integration of genomic and physical data will be crucial for tracing evolutionary trends in fast-changing marine environments.