The formation of avian montane diversity across barriers and along elevational gradients.

ABSTRACT: Tropical mountains harbor exceptional concentrations of Earth's biodiversity. In topographically complex landscapes, montane species typically inhabit multiple mountainous regions, but are absent in intervening lowland environments. Here we report a comparative analysis of genome-wide DNA polymorphism data for population pairs from eighteen Indo-Pacific bird species from the Moluccan islands of Buru and Seram and from across the island of New Guinea. We test how barrier strength and relative elevational distribution predict population differentiation, rates of historical gene flow, and changes in effective population sizes through time. We find population differentiation to be consistently and positively correlated with barrier strength and a species' altitudinal floor. Additionally, we fi

SUBMITTER: Pujolar JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8755808 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature