Data from: Multiple late-Pleistocene colonisation events of the Antarctic pearlwort Colobanthus quitensis (Caryophyllaceae) reveal the recent arrival of native Antarctic vascular flora ...

• Main Authors: Biersma, E. M., Torres-Díaz, C., Newsham, K. K., Vidal, M. A., Ballesteros, G., Figueroa, C. C., Goodall-Copestake, W. P., Leppe, M.A., Cuba-Díaz, M., Valladares, M. A., Pertierra, L. R., Convey, P., Acuña-Rodríguez, I. S., Collado, G. A., Molina-Montenegro, M. A.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2020
• Subjects: Southern Ocean; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.qrfj6q5bw; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.qrfj6q5bw

Aim: Antarctica’s remote and extreme terrestrial environments are inhabited by only two species of native vascular plants. We assessed genetic connectivity amongst Antarctic and South American populations of one of these species, Colobanthus quitensis, to determine its origin and age in Antarctica. Location: Maritime Antarctic, sub-Antarctic islands, South America Taxon: Antarctic pearlwort Colobanthus quitensis (Caryophyllaceae) Methods: Four chloroplast markers and one nuclear marker were sequenced from 270 samples from a latitudinal transect spanning 21–68° S. Phylogeographic, population genetic and molecular dating analyses were used to assess the demographic history of C. quitensis and the age of the species in Antarctica. Results: Maritime Antarctic populations consisted of two different haplotype clusters, occupying the northern and southern Maritime Antarctic. Molecular dating analyses suggested C. quitensis to be a young (<1 Myr) species, with contemporary population structure derived since the ... : The uploaded data files include: the input nex files for Bayesian phylogenetic analyses with MrBayes v.3.2. The final tree files are also included. the input nex files (with traits) for the haplotype network analyses in PopART. input and output files of the relative divergence time analyses calculated using STARBEAST 2.5.1 (method I and II) ...