Responses to historical climate change identify contemporary threats to diversity in Dodecatheon.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic climate change may threaten many species with extinction. However, species at risk today survived global climate change in recent geological history. Describing how habitat tracking and adaptation allowed species to survive warming since the end of the Pleistocene can indicate the relative importance of dispersal and natural selection during climate change. By taking this historical perspective, we can identify how contemporary climate change could interfere with these mechanisms and threaten the most vulnerable species. We focused on a group of closely related plant species in the genus Dodecatheon (Primulaceae) in eastern North America. Two rare species (Dodecatheon amethystinum and Dodecatheon frenchii) that are endemic to patchy cool cliffs may be glacial relicts whose ra

SUBMITTER: Oberle B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3078354 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature