Persistent history of the bird-dispersed arctic-alpine plant Vaccinium vitis-idaea L. (Ericaceae) in Japan
Abstract
Arctic-alpine plants have expanded and contracted their ranges in response to the Pleistocene climate oscillations. Today, many arctic-alpine plants have vast distributions in the circumarctic region as well as marginal, isolated occurrences in high mountains at lower latitudes. These marginal populations may represent relict, long-standing populations that have persisted for several cycles of cold and warm climate during the Pleistocene, or recent occurrences that either result from southward step-wise migration during the last glacial period or from recent long-distance dispersal. In light of these hypotheses, we investigated the biogeographic history of the marginal Japanese populations of the widespread arctic-alpine plant Vaccinium vitis-idaea (Ericaceae), which is bird-dispersed, potentially over long distances. We sequenced three nuclear loci and one plastid DNA region in 130 individuals from 65 localities covering its entire geographic range, with a focus on its marginal populations in Japan. We found a homogenous genetic pattern across its enormous range based on the loci analysed, in contrast to the geographically structured variation found in a previous study of amplified fragment length polymorphisms in this species...Continue Reading
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Genetic roadmap of the Arctic: plant dispersal highways, traffic barriers and capitals of diversity.
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