Genetic legacies of past climate change on Arctic species: how past responses shape future impacts ...

• Main Author: Dance, Maria
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Oxford 2023
• Subjects: Paleoecology > Quaternary; Phylogeography; Global environmental change; Biogeography; Macroecology; Paleoclimatology; Climate changes; Remote sensing; Paleoecology > Holocene; Population genetics; Molecular ecology; Arctic; Betula nana; Climate change; Rangifer tarandus; Sea ice; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5287/ora-1r4okkydz; https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7e2e2273-73d8-4b2e-bc5a-72430830ebf6

Major ecosystem changes are under way in the rapidly warming Arctic region. Sea ice loss and tundra shrub expansion are leading to ecological impacts across multiple biological, spatial, and temporal scales. The distribution and population dynamics of reindeer/caribou (Rangifer tarandus L.) — the most numerous and widespread large herbivore in the Arctic — and the dwarf birches (Betula nana L. and Betula glandulosa Michx.) — dominant tundra shrubs — will be affected. Understanding how these species responded to rapid and large-scale climate and sea ice changes in the past will increase our understanding of the long-term ecological and evolutionary implications of anthropogenic climate change. The impacts of past climate change on species leave genetic imprints in their living descendants, which, in turn, influence their genetic variation and capacity to adapt to future changes. In this thesis, I aim to uncover how climate fluctuations in the Quaternary period (2.6 million years ago - present) shaped the ...