Post-glacial Colonization of Western Europe Brown Bears From a Cryptic Atlantic Refugium Out of the Iberian Peninsula

• Published in: Historical Biology
• Main Authors: García-Vázquez, Ana, Pinto-Llona, Ana C., Grandal-d'Anglade, Aurora
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2017
• Subjects: Ursus arctos; Brown bear; LGM; Postglacial colonization; Iberian Peninsula; Criptic refugium
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2183/34731; https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2017.1384473

This is an Accepted Manuscript version, accepted for publication in Historical Biology. [Abstract] The European brown bear (Ursus arctos) shows a particular phylogeography that has been used to illustrate the model for contraction-expansion dynamics related to glacial refugia in Southern European peninsulas. Recent studies, however, have nuanced the once generally accepted paradigm, indicating the existence of cryptic refugia for some species further north. In this paper we collected available data on chronology and mitochondrial haplotypes from Western European brown bears, adding new sequences from present day individuals from the Cantabrian (North Iberia) area, in order to reconstruct the dynamics of the species in the region. Both genetics and chronology show that the Iberian Pleistocene lineages were not the direct ancestors of the Holocene ones, the latter entering the Peninsula belatedly (around 10,000 years BP) with respect to other areas such as the British Isles. We therefore propose the existence of a cryptic refugium in continental Atlantic Europe, from where the bears would expand as the ice receded. The delay in the recolonization of the Iberian Peninsula could be due to the orographic characteristics of the Pyrenean-Cantabrian region and to the abundant presence of humans in the natural entrance to the Peninsula. This work is part of the BIOGEOS [grant number CGL2014-57209-P] Research Project of the Spanish Ministry of Economy (MINECO/FEDER) and Competitiveness and a Consolidating grant from the Xunta de Galicia for emerging research groups [grant number GPC2015/024] Xunta de Galicia; GPC2015/024