Phylogeography of the longhorn cactus beetle Moneilema appressum LeConte (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae): was the differentiation of the Madrean sky islands driven by Pleistocene climate changes?

Abstract

Although it has been suggested that Pleistocene climate changes drove population differentiation and speciation in many groups of organisms, population genetic evidence in support of this scenario has been ambiguous, and it has often been difficult to distinguish putative vicariance from simple isolation by distance. The sky island communities of the American Southwest present an ideal system in which to compare late Pleistocene range fragmentations documented by palaeoenvironmental studies with population genetic data from organisms within these communities. In order to elucidate the impact of Pleistocene climate fluctuations on these environments, biogeographic patterns in the flightless longhorn cactus beetle, Moneilema appressum were examined using mitochondrial DNA sequence data. Gene tree relationships between haplotypes were inferred using parsimony, maximum-likelihood, and Bayesian analysis. Nested clade analysis, Mantel tests, and coalescent modelling were employed to examine alternative biogeographic scenarios, and to test the hypothesis that Pleistocene climate changes drove population differentiation in this species. The program mdiv was used to estimate migration and divergence times between populations, and to measure the statistical support for isolation over ongoing migration. These analyses showed significant geographic structure in genetic relationships, and implicated topography as a key determinant of isolation. However, although the coalescent analyses suggested that a history of past habitat fragmentation underlies the observed geographic patterns, the nested clade analysis indicated that the pattern was consistent with isolation by distance. Estimated divergence times indicated that range fragmentation in M. appressum is considerably older than the end of the most recent glacial, but coincided with earlier interglacial warming events and with documented range expansions in other, desert-dwelling species of Moneilema.

Molecular phylogeography and population structure of a mid-elevation montane frog Leptobrachium ailaonicum in a fragmented habitat of southwest China

“…2006), and thus considered the cause of allopatric isolation and lineage split. The same pattern has been observed for several species of plants (Assefa et al, 2007), arthropods (Masta, 2000;Ponniah, 2002;Martin, 2004, 2005;Smith and Farrell, 2005;Finn et al, 2006;Mark and Jane, 2006), amphibians (Doak, 2005;Roberts et al, 2007), and mammals (Yuan et al, 2006), to name a few, indicating that lowland areas are barriers to contemporary dispersal and were effective barriers to ancestral gene flow.…”

Recovery of DNA from archaeological insect remains: first results, problems and potential

“…Ashworth, 1996;Reiss et al, 1999;Cardoso and Vogler, 2005), some other groups of beetles (e.g. Schrey et al, 2005;Smith and Farrell, 2005), human lice (Leo et al, 2002;Yong et al, 2003), and butterflies (e.g. Nice et al, 2005).…”

Phylogeographic Patterns of mtDNA Variation Revealed Multiple Glacial Refugia for the Frog Species Feirana taihangnica Endemic to the Qinling Mountains

“…Substantial genetic heterogeneity commonly exists between intraspecific populations from different Mountains that are separated by low-elevation areas with disparate environmental conditions (Knowles 2000;DeChaine and Martin 2006;Smith and Farrell 2005;Wiens and Graham 2005;Kozak and Wiens 2006). In the QM region, the gene flow among populations of Feirana taihangnica that live in stream habitats may be restricted by warmer or more xeric valleys.…”

“…Subsequently, many populations have experienced contractions or expansions of population size and distribution range Knowles 2001;Maddison and McMahon 2000). Furthermore, the levels of genetic differentiation as well as other biological features may influence the lineage sorting, and determine whether different populations would merge into one gene pool within their secondary contact zone (Knowles 2000(Knowles , 2001Smith and Farrell 2005;Richards et al 2007).…”