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| Dryas Octapetalus - Mountain Avens namesake of the Young Dryas |
Temperate species expanded and contracted with temperature fluxes during glacial cycles. Many cold-tolerant species that survived in northern cryptic refugia had larger distributions: the Arctic Fox (Alopex lagopus), the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) the little white flower Dryas octapetala (pictured left) and dwarf birch (Betula nana). These species expanded during glacials and contracted during interglacials. With impending global warming, their contracted distributions may well retreat into isolated cooler refugia just as the reverse is true for heat-loving plants. Recent phylogeographic studies have given support to the existence of previously unknown, or cryptic, refugia during the LGM Provan (2008)
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| The Arctic Fox (Alopex lagopus) |
Phylogeographic evidence indicates there was a major northern refugium for a variety of taxa in the area around the Carpathians, with divergent lineages in the region, many predating the LGM.
The existence of a Carpathian refugium characterized by mixed deciduous and coniferous woodland, often on milder south facing slopes is supported by the fossil record and palyncological studies. Its role in the postglacial colonization of Northern and Western Europe has only become apparent with genetic analysis.
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| The Carpathian Mountains |
The Carpathians are a chain of mountains stretching in an arc from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine to Romania. The highest range is theTatras Mtns on the border of Poland and Slovakia.
Northern North America ice-free regions in the Canadian high Arctic and between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets was a cryptic refugia for Dryas integrifolia (plant) Tremblay (1999), Ovis spp. (mountain sheep), Loehr (2006) Lagopus mutus (rock ptarmigan), Holder (2000) Dicrostonyx groenlandicus (collared lemming) Federov (2002) and Packera spp. (plants) Golden (2000) .
In the English Channel, the Hurd Deep, or surrounding trenches, which might have
persisted as ‘marine lakes’ were the cryptic refugia for Ascophyllum nodosum (seaweed), Olsen (2010) Fucus serratus (seaweed) (Coyer, 2003) Palmaria palmata (seaweed) Provan (2005)
In the last few years, many pieces of the European Cryptic Refugia puzzle have come from phylogeoraphic research by many dedicated scholars - associating patterns of gene geneology with geographic distributions.
An interesting post, Michele. Do the Carpathian refugia vary much from region to region, or are they generally uniform, or do they match patterns of ecological change over Europe?
ReplyDeleteI'd love to be able to answer your question but this data has been uncovered recently through genetic studies but I very much doubt anyone would be able to provide detailed distribution data - the species referred to in the blog are those clearly identified but most likely more existed. If you are interested in this subject, I'd recommend reading "Phyllogeographic Insights into Cryptic Refugia by J. Provan and K.D. Bennett, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 10, the article that this blog was based on. Thanks for your interest!
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