Diversity of temperate plants in east Asia

Abstract

The exceptionally broad species diversity of vascular plant genera in east Asian temperate forests, compared with their sister taxa in North America, has been attributed to the greater climatic diversity of east Asia, combined with opportunities for allopatric speciation afforded by repeated fragmentation and coalescence of populations through Late Cenozoic ice-age cycles. According to Qian and Ricklefs, these opportunities occurred in east Asia because temperate forests extended across the continental shelf to link populations in China, Korea and Japan during glacial periods, whereas higher sea levels during interglacial periods isolated these regions and warmer temperatures restricted temperate taxa to disjunct refuges. However, palaeovegetation data from east Asia show that temperate forests were considerably less extensive than today during the Last Glacial Maximum, calling into question the coalescence of tree populations required by the hypothesis of Qian and Ricklefs.

Phylogeography of East Asian Lespedeza buergeri (Fabaceae) based on chloroplast and nuclear ribosomal DNA sequence variations

“…China Sea (ECS) to the Korea/Tsushima Strait (KS) (Harrison et al 2001). Thus, the current distribution and genetic structure of warm-temperate plant species in CJK are considered to be closely associated with the formation of that historical land bridge (see review by Qiu et al 2011).…”

“…Pollen records and some molecular data have indicated that those forests disappeared from the Peninsula during the LGM but have, since then, been colonized from southern refugia of China and/or Japan (Chung et al 2013(Chung et al , 2014Harrison et al 2001). However, other molecular evidence has implied that refugia existed within the Korean Peninsula during the LGM and that re-colonization from Southern Japan also occurred (Lee et al 2014).…”

Molecular phylogeny, biogeography and ecological niche modelling ofCardiocrinum(Liliaceae): insights into the evolutionary history of endemic genera distributed across the Sino-Japanese floristic region

“…In the west of the region, the uplift events of the Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains during the last few million years are reported to have caused drastic habitat fragmentation and heterogeneity which played important roles in promoting inter-and intraspecific divergences Wang et al, 2014). In the east of the region, fluctuations in sea level of the East China Sea have also been shown to have provided abundant opportunities for population fragmentation and allopatric speciation to occur (Qian and Ricklefs, 2000;Harrison et al, 2001;Qiu et al, 2009aQiu et al, , b, c, 2011. Additionally, it is well known that climate change plays a critical role in shaping the distribution of plants (Harrison et al, 2001;Qiu et al, 2011).…”

“…In the east of the region, fluctuations in sea level of the East China Sea have also been shown to have provided abundant opportunities for population fragmentation and allopatric speciation to occur (Qian and Ricklefs, 2000;Harrison et al, 2001;Qiu et al, 2009aQiu et al, , b, c, 2011. Additionally, it is well known that climate change plays a critical role in shaping the distribution of plants (Harrison et al, 2001;Qiu et al, 2011). The range dynamics in response to past climate change have been assessed based on ecological niche modelling (ENM) for a limited number of plants in the SJFR, such as Cercidiphyllum (Qi et al, 2012), Kalopanax septemlobus (Sakaguchi et al, 2012) and Tetrastigma hemsleyanum (Wang et al, 2015).…”

A review on research advances, issues, and perspectives of morels

“…Refugia created by microclimatic variations provided some protection, and habitat fragmentation caused new speciation and diversification (Hewitt 2000; Harrison et al 2001; Yang 2005). As indicated by the current published data, distribution areas of morels in North America and Europe are concentrated on the west and east coasts and the Mediterranean coast, which have been recognized as probable refugia in several studies (Hewitt 2000; Soltis et al 2006).…”