Geographic patterns of genetic distribution within Calochortus Gunnisonii in the central and southern Rocky Mountains

• Main Author: Fuller, Ryan Scott
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC 2015
• Subjects: Lilies; Calochortus gunnisonii; Genetics; Botony; Glaciology; College of Natural and Health Sciences; Biological Sciences; Biological Sciences Student Work; Arctic
• Online Access: https://digscholarship.unco.edu/theses/35; https://digscholarship.unco.edu/context/theses/article/1092/viewcontent/FullerThesis2015.pdf

Organismal population ranges and genetic architecture have largely been shaped by climatic events. The Quaternary Period (2.6 million years to present) has been characterized by a series of climatic events manifested as Ice Ages. During glacial periods, plants and animals in temperate and arctic regions were restricted to small patches of suitable habitat less affected by expanding glaciers and extreme cooling. These refugia held importance for the persistence of organisms through glacier interphases. Mountain system vegetation in temperate latitudes was affected by patchy glacier patterns that separated some species into multiple refugia. The isolation of such populations has had a profound effect on genetic architecture across the globe. Glacial induced reproductive isolation causes genetic differences to arise and may result in the genesis of new species. Peripatric speciation is a species concept that seeks to explain these geneses and states that species arise when climatic or tectonic events isolate small populations from an ancestral population that differentiate due to no or limited gene flow. Isolation of populations to distinct geographic areas via peripatry exposes populations to local genetic drift and/or selection pressures and the resulting genetic architecture should reflect in a geographically concordant manner. Within the southern Rocky Mountains of North America, recent glacial patterns were patchy and plant populations were highly fragmented. Calochortus gunnisonii S. Watson (Liliaceae) is a common lily with a large range spanning Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and southwestern South Dakota. Herbarium records indicated disjunctions stemming from intermontane basins where suitable habitat is either too patchy or absent in the current climate conditions. The highly dissected range contains populations restricted to high elevation, “island-like†mountain ranges in the southern Rocky Mountains. Using microsatellite data, this research investigated the role of glacial oscillatory ...