Long-term in situ persistence of biodiversity in tropical sky islands revealed by landscape genomics

Mastretta-Yanes, Alicia, Xue, Alexander T., Moreno-Letelier, Alejandra, Jorgensen, Tove H., Alvarez, Nadir, Piñero, Daniel and Emerson, Brent C. (2018) Long-term in situ persistence of biodiversity in tropical sky islands revealed by landscape genomics. Molecular Ecology, 27 (2). pp. 432-448. ISSN 0962-1083

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Abstract

Tropical mountains are areas of high species richness and endemism. Two historical phenomena may have contributed to this: (1) fragmentation and isolation of habitats may have promoted the genetic differentiation of populations and increased the possibility of allopatric divergence and speciation, and; (2) the mountain areas may have allowed long-term population persistence during global climate fluctuations. These two phenomena have been studied using either species occurrence data or estimating species divergence times. However, only few studies have used intraspecific genetic data to analyse the mechanisms by which endemism may emerge at the microevolutionary scale. Here, we use landscape analysis of genomic SNP data sampled from two high-elevation plant species from an archipelago of tropical sky-islands (the Transmexican Volcanic Belt) to test for population genetic differentiation, synchronous demographic changes and habitat persistence. We show that genetic differentiation can be explained by the degree of glacial habitat connectivity among mountains, and that mountains have facilitated the persistence of populations throughout glacial/interglacial cycles. Our results support the ongoing role of tropical mountains as cradles for biodiversity by uncovering cryptic differentiation and limits to gene flow.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	aggregate site frequency spectrum,juniperus monticola,berberis alpina,trans-mexican volcanic belt,alpine,biodiversity distribution,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
Related URLs:	http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/mec.14461
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	04 Jan 2018 00:07
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2022 03:27
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/65851
DOI:	10.1111/mec.14461

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