Ecology matters: Atlantic–Mediterranean disjunction in the sand‐dune shrub Armeria pungens (Plumbaginaceae)

Abstract

Inferring the evolutionary history of Mediterranean plant lineages from current genetic, distributional and taxonomic patterns is complex because of a number of palaeoclimatic and geological interconnected factors together with landscape heterogeneity and human influence. Therefore, choosing spatially simplified systems as study groups is a suitable approach. An amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) study using two restriction enzyme combinations (EcoRI/MseI and KpnI/MseI) was carried out to estimate the structure of genetic variation throughout the range of Armeria pungens. This species has a West Iberian-Corso/Sardinian disjunct distribution on coastal sand-dune ecosystems. Bayesian, amova and genetic distance analyses of the AFLP data revealed the same distinguishable genetic groups, which do not match the main geographical disjunction. Corso-Sardinian populations were found to be genetically closer to southwest Portuguese than to those from the Gulf of Cadiz (the closest geographically). Eastwards long-distance dispersal is therefore invoked to explain this geographical disjunction. A GIS analysis based on bioclimatic envelope modelling aiming to characterize the current locations of A. pungens found strong similarities between the Portugal and Corsica-Sardinia sites and less so between these areas and the Gulf of Cadiz. This coincident pattern between AFLP and climatic data suggests that the geographical disjunction is better explained by climatic factors than by the likeliness of a stochastic dispersal event. Such a combined phylogeographical-GIS modelling approach proves to be enlightening in reconstructing the evolutionary history of plant species.

Low Genetic Diversity in the Rare Madeiran Endemic Armeria maderensis (Plumbaginaceae)

“…& Link (Piñeiro et al 2007). Armeria pungens is disjunctly distributed in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.…”

Genetic structure and phylogeography in Juniperus oxycedrus subsp. macrocarpa around the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, based on AFLP and plastid markers

“…Piñeiro et al 2007;Terrab et al 2008). The Iberian Peninsula is potentially important phylogeographically, because it is the western extreme of the Mediterranean basin and because the Strait of Gibraltar links the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea and also constitutes the closest link between Europe and Africa.…”

Prediction of marine species distribution from presence–absence acoustic data: comparing the fitting efficiency and the predictive capacity of conventional and novel distribution models

“…For each given environmental variable, the algorithm finds the minimum and maximum at all occurrence sites. The Envelope Score algorithm is equivalent to the inclusive 'OR' implementation of Bioclim described in Piñeiro et al (2007). EnvScore models were developed using OpenModeller software (Muñoz et al, 2009).…”