The road to evolutionary success: insights from the demographic history of an Amazonian palm.

ABSTRACT: Evolutionary success, as demonstrated by high abundance and a wide geographical range, is related to genetic variation and historical demography. Here we assess how climatic change during the Quaternary influenced the demography and distribution of the Neotropical swamp palm Mauritia flexuosa. Using microsatellite loci and coalescent analyses we examined how demographical dynamics affected genetic diversity, effective population size and connectivity through time and space. Mauritia flexuosa presents significant genetic differentiation between the Amazonian and Cerrado biomes and among different river basins. Amazonian lineages are ancient compared to lineages from the Cerrado, a pattern corroborated using the fossil pollen record, where the species was absent from the Cerrado during the c

SUBMITTER: Melo WA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6039527 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature