The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum

The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum

The increasing aridity during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has been proposed as a major factor affecting Neotropical species. The character and intensity of this change, however, remains the subject of ongoing debate. This review proposes an approach to test contrasting paleoecological hypotheses...

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Main Authors: Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago, Eguiarte, Luis E
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2013
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3605859/
id pubmed-3605859
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-36058592013-03-25 The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago Eguiarte, Luis E Reviews The increasing aridity during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has been proposed as a major factor affecting Neotropical species. The character and intensity of this change, however, remains the subject of ongoing debate. This review proposes an approach to test contrasting paleoecological hypotheses by way of their expected demographic and genetic effects on Neotropical cloud forest species. We reviewed 48 paleoecological records encompassing the LGM in the Neotropics. The records show contrasting evidence regarding the changes in precipitation during this period. Some regions remained fairly moist and others had a significantly reduced precipitation. Many paleoecological records within the same region show apparently conflicting evidence on precipitation and forest stability. From these data, we propose and outline two demographic/genetic scenarios for cloud forests species based on opposite precipitation regimes: the dry refugia and the moist forests hypotheses. We searched for studies dealing with the population genetic structure of cloud forest and other montane taxa and compared their results with the proposed models. To date, the few available molecular studies show insufficient genetic evidence on the predominance of glacial aridity in the Neotropics. In order to disentangle the climatic history of the Neotropics, the present study calls for a general multi-disciplinary approach to conduct future phylogeographic studies. Given the contradictory paleoecological information, population genetic data on Neotropical cloud forest species should be used to explicitly test the genetic consequences of competing paleoecological models. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2013-03 2013-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC3605859/ /pubmed/23531632 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.483 Text en © 2013 Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, which does not permit commercial exploitation.
repository_type Open Access Journal
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building NCBI PubMed
collection Online Access
language English
format Online
author Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago
Eguiarte, Luis E
spellingShingle Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago
Eguiarte, Luis E
The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum
author_facet Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago
Eguiarte, Luis E
author_sort Ramírez-Barahona, Santiago
title The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum
title_short The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum
title_full The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum
title_fullStr The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum
title_full_unstemmed The role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the Neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the Last Glacial Maximum
title_sort role of glacial cycles in promoting genetic diversity in the neotropics: the case of cloud forests during the last glacial maximum
description The increasing aridity during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has been proposed as a major factor affecting Neotropical species. The character and intensity of this change, however, remains the subject of ongoing debate. This review proposes an approach to test contrasting paleoecological hypotheses by way of their expected demographic and genetic effects on Neotropical cloud forest species. We reviewed 48 paleoecological records encompassing the LGM in the Neotropics. The records show contrasting evidence regarding the changes in precipitation during this period. Some regions remained fairly moist and others had a significantly reduced precipitation. Many paleoecological records within the same region show apparently conflicting evidence on precipitation and forest stability. From these data, we propose and outline two demographic/genetic scenarios for cloud forests species based on opposite precipitation regimes: the dry refugia and the moist forests hypotheses. We searched for studies dealing with the population genetic structure of cloud forest and other montane taxa and compared their results with the proposed models. To date, the few available molecular studies show insufficient genetic evidence on the predominance of glacial aridity in the Neotropics. In order to disentangle the climatic history of the Neotropics, the present study calls for a general multi-disciplinary approach to conduct future phylogeographic studies. Given the contradictory paleoecological information, population genetic data on Neotropical cloud forest species should be used to explicitly test the genetic consequences of competing paleoecological models.
publisher Blackwell Publishing Ltd
publishDate 2013
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3605859/
_version_ 1611964731078213632

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