Ice-age persistence and genetic isolation of the disjunct distribution of larch in Alaska ...

Larix laricina (eastern larch, tamarack) is a transcontinental North American conifer with a prominent disjunction in the Yukon isolating the Alaskan distribution from the rest of its range. We investigate whether in situ persistence during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) or long-distance postglacial...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Napier, Joseph, Fernandez, Matias, De Lafontaine, Guillaume, Hu, Feng Sheng
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h9w0vt4dx
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.h9w0vt4dx
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Summary:Larix laricina (eastern larch, tamarack) is a transcontinental North American conifer with a prominent disjunction in the Yukon isolating the Alaskan distribution from the rest of its range. We investigate whether in situ persistence during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) or long-distance postglacial migration from south of the ice sheets resulted in the modern-day Alaskan distribution. We analyzed variation in three chloroplast DNA regions of 840 trees from a total of 69 populations (24 new sampling sites situated on both sides of the Yukon range disjunction pooled with 45 populations from a published source) and conducted ensemble species distribution modeling (SDM) throughout Canada and USA to hindcast the potential range of Larix laricina during the LGM. We uncovered the genetic signature of a long-term isolation of larch populations in Alaska, identifying three endemic chlorotypes and low levels of genetic diversity. Range-wide analysis across North America revealed the presence of a distinct Alaskan ...