Locating pleistocene refugia: comparing phylogeographic and ecological niche model predictions.

ABSTRACT: Ecological niche models (ENMs) provide a means of characterizing the spatial distribution of suitable conditions for species, and have recently been applied to the challenge of locating potential distributional areas at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) when unfavorable climate conditions led to range contractions and fragmentation. Here, we compare and contrast ENM-based reconstructions of LGM refugial locations with those resulting from the more traditional molecular genetic and phylogeographic predictions. We examined 20 North American terrestrial vertebrate species from different regions and with different range sizes for which refugia have been identified based on phylogeographic analyses, using ENM tools to make parallel predictions. We then assessed the correspondence between the two a

SUBMITTER: Waltari E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1905943 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature