Unique genetic variation at a species' rear edge is under threat from global climate change.

ABSTRACT: Global climate change is having a significant effect on the distributions of a wide variety of species, causing both range shifts and population extinctions. To date, however, no consensus has emerged on how these processes will affect the range-wide genetic diversity of impacted species. It has been suggested that species that recolonized from low-latitude refugia might harbour high levels of genetic variation in rear-edge populations, and that loss of these populations could cause a disproportionately large reduction in overall genetic diversity in such taxa. In the present study, we have examined the distribution of genetic diversity across the range of the seaweed Chondrus crispus, a species that has exhibited a northward shift in its southern limit in Europe over the last 40 years. An

SUBMITTER: Provan J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3223643 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature