Estimating effects of global warming from past range changes for cold demanding refugial taxa: A case study on South-west Anatolian species Poecilimon birandi

Abstract

Although changes in biodiversity and in ecosystems are surely caused by a range of interacting drivers, such as natural or human-induced factors, one of the important drivers having major impacts on climate and biodiversity and leading to range changes and fragmentation is global warming. Defining past range changes/fragmentations during interglacial periods may provide tools to understand possible impacts of global warming on present biodiversity. To test this assumption we studied a marker gene in the bush-cricket Poecilimon birandi, a species confined to South-west Anatolia that demands a cold climate. Haplotypes of P. birandi constituted three main phylogroups, West, East and Demre. All haplotypes are unique to the respective phylogroup. An AMOVA suggested considerable divergence at all hierarchical levels. Though there is a strong isolation between phylogroups, the East and West groups harbour considerable haplotype diversity. Most of the demographic analyses suggest stable historical populations for the West and East phylogroups, but a coalescent-based demographic analysis indicates a bottleneck for the West phylogroup. The main conclusions are; (i) P. birandi contains considerable phylogenetic signal in 16S rDNA, (ii) there were at least three contemporaneous radiations, which might have originated from isolated refugial populations during Pleistocene, (iii) within a refugium, range changes induced by climatic shifts may be only vertical through an altitudinal gradient, (iv) significant genetic structure can arise in a small heterogeneous area, if the species requires particular habitats and has weak dispersal ability, (v) climatic shifts may cause fragmentation or extinction of populations, but can also lead to divergence of populations suffering from fragmentation, and (vi) altitudinal heterogeneity plays a buffering role, allowing for survival of the refugial biodiversity.

A new species of the genus Camponotus (Mayr) (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) from Turkey

“…The founder populations moved from these southern refugial areas during the hot interglacial periods to reestablish the biodiversity of northern areas. Many scientists think that Anatolia was an important Pleistocene glacial refugium (Çıplak, 2004;Kaya et al, 2012).…”

Diversification of montane species via elevation shifts: the case of the Kaçkar cricketPhonochorion(Orthoptera)

“…; Kaya et al. ). Neutrality tests and mismatch distributions clearly indicated that Clade III had gone through a recent rapid expansion.…”

“…; Kaya et al. ) advocating the widespread involvement of the mid‐Pleistocene revolution for divergence within Anatolian mountains.…”

“…() where the phylogenetic structure of the mtDNA tree of the Anterastes serbicus species group were determined by mountain chains and not well‐defined morphospecies and Kaya et al. () where mountain chains led to excessive fragmentation and in situ survival of Poecilimon birandi .…”

“…; Kaya et al. ). Information detailing the impact of Anatolian mountain chains for the diversity of montane species comes mostly from Orthoptera (Çıplak ,b, ), which show staggering levels of diversity and endemicity.…”