Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska
Paleorecords offer key information for evaluating model simulations of species migration in response to forecast climatic change. However, their utility can be greatly compromised by the existence of glacial refugia that are undetectable in fossil records (cryptic refugia). Despite several decades o...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:1567899 2023-05-15T16:41:05+02:00 Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska Anderson, Lynn L. Hu, Feng Sheng Nelson, David M. Petit, Rémy J. Paige, Ken N. 2006-08-15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567899 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16894151 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605310103 en eng National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567899 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16894151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605310103 © 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA Biological Sciences Text 2006 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605310103 2013-08-31T06:43:44Z Paleorecords offer key information for evaluating model simulations of species migration in response to forecast climatic change. However, their utility can be greatly compromised by the existence of glacial refugia that are undetectable in fossil records (cryptic refugia). Despite several decades of investigation, it remains controversial whether Beringia, the largely unglaciated area extending from northeastern Siberia to the Yukon Territory, harbored small populations of certain boreal tree species during the last glaciation. Here, we present genetic evidence for the existence of a glacial refuge in Alaska that helps to resolve this long-standing controversy. We sequenced chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) of white spruce (Picea glauca), a dominant boreal tree species, in 24 forest stands across northwestern North America. The majority of cpDNA haplotypes are unique, and haplotype diversity is relatively high in Alaska, arguing against the possibility that this species migrated into the region from areas south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet after the end of the last glaciation. Thus, white spruce apparently survived long glacial episodes under climatic extremes in a heterogeneous landscape matrix. These results suggest that estimated rates of tree migration from fossil records may be too high and that the ability of trees to track anthropogenic warming may be more limited than previously thought. Text Ice Sheet Alaska Beringia Siberia Yukon PubMed Central (PMC) Yukon Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 33 12447 12450 |
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Biological Sciences |
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Biological Sciences Anderson, Lynn L. Hu, Feng Sheng Nelson, David M. Petit, Rémy J. Paige, Ken N. Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska |
topic_facet |
Biological Sciences |
description |
Paleorecords offer key information for evaluating model simulations of species migration in response to forecast climatic change. However, their utility can be greatly compromised by the existence of glacial refugia that are undetectable in fossil records (cryptic refugia). Despite several decades of investigation, it remains controversial whether Beringia, the largely unglaciated area extending from northeastern Siberia to the Yukon Territory, harbored small populations of certain boreal tree species during the last glaciation. Here, we present genetic evidence for the existence of a glacial refuge in Alaska that helps to resolve this long-standing controversy. We sequenced chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) of white spruce (Picea glauca), a dominant boreal tree species, in 24 forest stands across northwestern North America. The majority of cpDNA haplotypes are unique, and haplotype diversity is relatively high in Alaska, arguing against the possibility that this species migrated into the region from areas south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet after the end of the last glaciation. Thus, white spruce apparently survived long glacial episodes under climatic extremes in a heterogeneous landscape matrix. These results suggest that estimated rates of tree migration from fossil records may be too high and that the ability of trees to track anthropogenic warming may be more limited than previously thought. |
format |
Text |
author |
Anderson, Lynn L. Hu, Feng Sheng Nelson, David M. Petit, Rémy J. Paige, Ken N. |
author_facet |
Anderson, Lynn L. Hu, Feng Sheng Nelson, David M. Petit, Rémy J. Paige, Ken N. |
author_sort |
Anderson, Lynn L. |
title |
Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska |
title_short |
Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska |
title_full |
Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ice-age endurance: DNA evidence of a white spruce refugium in Alaska |
title_sort |
ice-age endurance: dna evidence of a white spruce refugium in alaska |
publisher |
National Academy of Sciences |
publishDate |
2006 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567899 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16894151 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605310103 |
geographic |
Yukon |
geographic_facet |
Yukon |
genre |
Ice Sheet Alaska Beringia Siberia Yukon |
genre_facet |
Ice Sheet Alaska Beringia Siberia Yukon |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567899 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16894151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605310103 |
op_rights |
© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605310103 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
container_volume |
103 |
container_issue |
33 |
container_start_page |
12447 |
op_container_end_page |
12450 |
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1766031519693930496 |