Founder events and pre-glacial divergences shape the genetic structure of European Collembola species.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Climate oscillations in the Cenozoic reduced species richness and genetic diversity of terrestrial and aquatic animals and plants in central and northern Europe. The most abundant arthropods in temperate soils are Collembola that live in almost any soil-related habitat. Extant species show little morphological variation to Eocene fossils, suggesting persistence of species in stable habitats for millions of years. Collembola are able to evade adverse climatic conditions by moving into deeper soil layers and are tolerant to frost and draught. If these adaptations sufficed for surviving glacial periods remains open and needs to be investigated in a phylogeographic context, i.e. investigating spatial structure on molecular level. We investigated the molecular variation of th

SUBMITTER: von Saltzwedel H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4947257 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature