Surviving the ice: Northern refugia and postglacial colonization.

ABSTRACT: The contemporary distribution of biological diversity cannot be understood without knowledge of how organisms responded to the geological and climatic history of Earth. In particular, Quaternary expansions and contractions of glacial ice sheets are thought to have played an important role in shaping the distribution of biodiversity among current populations in the north-temperate region. In the central U.S., fossil and palynological data provide support for the maintenance of a large southeastern refuge during the last glacial maximum, and many temperate organisms are believed to have responded to glacial expansion by shifting their ranges to southern refugia and recolonizing northward to track the receding ice sheets. Thus, organisms are assumed to track favorable climates, and species ra

SUBMITTER: Rowe KC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC478575 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature