Camilla Avanzi , Federico Di Rita , Fabrizio Michelangeli , Juan Ochando , Paolo Piovani , Giovanni Giuseppe Vendramin , Donatella Magri , Andrea Piotti
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Rear edge populations might be of disproportionate importance for the adaptation of temperate forest tree species to climate change. The study of past demographic dynamics and their effects on extant genetic diversity are therefore keys to understand how to manage these potentially relevant forest genetic resources. Here we combine a comprehensive review of palaeobotanical evidence from peninsular Italy throughout the Quaternary with new genetic data for Picea abies, focusing on all known rear edge populations from the boundary zone between the Alps and the northern Apennines, to shed light on timing and modes of the fragmentation processes leading these populations close to extirpation. Our data show that Picea abies experienced a complex Quaternary history mirrored by a concomitantly complex genetic structure. The population in the southwestern Alps and the two populations living in the northwestern Apennines appear to be the last remnants of a much wider Pleistocene distribution. During the last glacial period and the postglacial they had distinct spatiotemporal dynamics. These peripheral populations are characterized by peculiar genetic features, a substantial pairwise genetic differentiation and general genetic impoverishment, with a ∼ 20% reduction of their allelic richness with respect to other Alpine populations.
These results collectively indicate that the southernmost Italian populations of Picea abies, still present in the northern Apennines and in the southwestern Alps, are extremely vulnerable to extirpation, as already was the case with populations that progressively disappeared from southern and central Italy in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene, respectively, and from the north-eastern Apennines during the late Holocene.
期刊介绍:
The Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology is an international journal for articles in all fields of palaeobotany and palynology dealing with all groups, ranging from marine palynomorphs to higher land plants. Original contributions and comprehensive review papers should appeal to an international audience. Typical topics include but are not restricted to systematics, evolution, palaeobiology, palaeoecology, biostratigraphy, biochronology, palaeoclimatology, paleogeography, taphonomy, palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, vegetation history, and practical applications of palaeobotany and palynology, e.g. in coal and petroleum geology and archaeology. The journal especially encourages the publication of articles in which palaeobotany and palynology are applied for solving fundamental geological and biological problems as well as innovative and interdisciplinary approaches.