Multiple refugia from penultimate glaciations in East Asia demonstrated by phylogeography and ecological modelling of an insect pest

Abstract

BackgroundRefugial populations in Quaternary glaciations are critical to understanding the evolutionary history and climatic interactions of many extant species. Compared with the well-studied areas of Europe and Northern America, refugia of species in eastern Asia remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated the phylogeographic history of a globally important insect pest, the oriental fruit moth Grapholita molesta, in its native range of China.ResultsGenetic structure analyses unveiled three distinct groups and a set of populations with admixture. Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) analyses support range expansion of this moth from southwest groups of Yunnan and Sichuan to northern and eastern China. A set of admixed populations was found around these two ancestral groups. This pattern of genetic structure points to two refugia located in the Yunnan region and Sichuan Basin. The split of the two refugia was dated to 329.2 thousand years ago in the penultimate glacial period. One of the lineages was exclusively found around the Sichuan Basin, indicating the formation of endemic populations in this refugium. Ecological niche model analysis suggested a shrinking distribution from the LIG period to the MID period in the Sichuan lineage but a wide and stable distribution in the other lineage.ConclusionsOur results for the first time suggest that Yunnan and Sichuan jointly served as two large-scale refugia in eastern Asia in Quaternary glaciations, helping to maintain genetic diversity overall.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-018-1269-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Sky islands as foci for divergence of fig trees and their pollinators in southwest China

“…The Yungui Plateau (blue clade) fig wasps have also undergone significant expansion towards the end of the last glacial period. Expansions in ranges concurrent with the LGM are unusual (Qi et al, ; Qiu et al, ; Zhang et al, ), but have been reported for Taxus wallichiana (Liu et al, ), Osteomeles schwerinae (Wang, Chen, et al, ) and Grapholita molesta (Song et al, ) in this area. The Hengduan Mountains retained very few suitable habitats for F. tikoua during the LGM.…”

A transcriptomic variation map provides insights into the genetic basis of Pinus massoniana Lamb. evolution and the association with oleoresin yield

“…The phylogenetic tree showed that the genotypes from the Sichuan Basin (Sichuang, Chongqing) were closest to those of P. taeda and were followed by other clades, suggesting that the Sichuan Basin is the geographic origin of masson pine. The Sichuan Basin was one of several glacial refuges for many species during the last Pleistocene glaciations [28,29], which may have rescued the masson pine from an extinction event. The masson pine gradually migrated to the Guizhou Plateau after the end of the glacial epoch and gradually adapted to the plateau habitat.…”

Identification of winter moth (Operophtera brumata) refugia in North Africa and the Italian Peninsula during the last glacial maximum

“…For example, in Europe, many studies have shown how the persistence of populations in separate glacial refugia (e.g., the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas, the Caucasus region, North Africa, and microrefugia in the Alps) during the Quaternary climatic oscillations promoted genetic diversity in contemporary populations (Andersen, Havill, Caccone, & Elkinton, ; Habel, Lens, Rodder, & Schmitt, ; Huck, Buedel, & Schmitt, ; Niedzialkowska et al, ; von Reumont, Struwe, Schwarzer, & Misof, ; Rofes et al, ; Schmitt, ; Schmitt & Müller, ; Sim, Hall, Jex, Hegel, & Coltman, ; Stolting et al, ; Torroni et al, ). For outbreaking species, reconstructing the biogeographical history of the species can help to determine the factors that might be promoting their outbreak (e.g., Moyal et al, ; Song et al, ; Zhu et al, ).…”