| Abstract Detail
Bryological and Lichenological Section/ABLS Shaw, Jonathan [1], Kyrkjeeide, Magni [2], Stenøien, Hans [2], Flatberg, Kjell Ivar [2], Hassel, Kristian [2]. Biogeography of northern peatmosses (Sphagnum). Sphagnum (peatmoss) species occur throughout the world but are especially diverse at northern latitudes. Some have more or less continuous ranges across northern North America, Europe, and Asia, whereas others have variously disjunctive ranges around the circumboreal zone. Spore producing plants such as bryophytes have the potential for long-distance dispersal and some peatmoss species show genetic evidence of dispersal across oceans such as, for example, between western Europe and eastern North America. We studied the genetic structure of eight Northern Hemisphere Sphagnum species using microsatellite markers and most show some degree of intraspecific genetic structure, suggesting dispersal limitation. A marked genetic discontinuity exists between plants in the Pacific Northwest of North America northward to the Panhandle of Alaska versus those to the north of that region in the main part of Alaska. Alaskan plants are more closely related to plants in eastern Asia than to those southward and eastward in North America. This occurs in multiple unrelated Sphagnum species and appears to be a recurrent biogeographic pattern. Eastern North American plants are most often genetically similar to western European plants although species tend to be more variable in eastern North America. Oceans appear to be less of a dispersal barrier than the mountains separating northern British Columbia and the Alaskan panhandle from boreal Alaska.
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1 - 130 Science Drive, Box 90338, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
2 - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, University Museum, No-7491 , Trondheim, Norway
Keywords:
Sphagnum
biogeography.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 70
Location: Salon 10/The Shaw Conference Centre
Date: Wednesday, July 29th, 2015
Time: 1:45 PM
Number: 70002
Abstract ID:1014
Candidate for Awards:None |
