When did the mammal fauna of the British Isles arrive?

Yalden, D. W.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2907.1982.tb00007.x

Cited by 76 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…There is substantial evidence that at the last glacial maximum Britain was climatically inhospitable to the common shrew (Yalden, 1982). Thus, any model for the origin and spread of the British karyotypic races must take into account that the common shrew invaded Britain while there was still a land bridge at the end of the glaciation (Searle, 1984).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Karyotypic variation in the common shrew (Sorex araneus) in Britain – a “Celtic Fringe”

Searle

Wilkinson

1987

Heredity

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Eight samples comprising 73 common shrews were collected from sites close to the coast in the south and west of England and Wales and analysed for karyotype. These samples included individuals of all three known British karyotypic races (Oxford, Aberdeen, Hermitage). Two new karyotypes were recorded: (a) individuals homozygous metacentric for arm combinations ko and np and homozygous acrocentric for chromosome arms q and r (classified as Aberdeen race) and (b) individuals homozygous metacentric for arm combinations ko and pr and homozygous acrocentric for chromosome arms n and q (classified as Hermitage race). The Aberdeen race occurs in the northern and western periphery of Britain (a "Celtic fringe"), the Oxford race is more central and eastern and the Hermitage race has an intermediate range (at least in England and Wales). This distribution is consistent with the hypothesis that the races spread into Britain at the end of the last glaciation in successive waves, the Oxford race partially displacing the Hermitage race which had, in turn, displaced the Aberdeen race. However, allele frequencies at the Mpi-1 locus may be more consistent with an independent origin of the separated northern and western subdivisions of the Aberdeen race.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a roughly analogous way to the Celtic peoples, the Aberdeen race shrews are envisaged as representing a once continuous race that invaded Britain from con- (Yalden, 1982).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Karyotypic variation in the common shrew (Sorex araneus) in Britain – a “Celtic Fringe”

Searle

Wilkinson

1987

Heredity

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“…Out of the four small rodents and insectivores currently found in Ireland, house mice and bank voles are known to be introductions, leaving only the pygmy shrew and the wood mouse as possible natural colonists. This compares with three species of vole, two or three species of mouse, one species of dormouse, three species of shrew and one species of mole that are native to Britain (Yalden 1982(Yalden , 1999. As Stuart (1995) has argued, it seems implausible that pygmy shrews could have colonized Ireland over a temporary land-bridge from Britain, while other species, particularly the voles and the other shrews, failed to do so.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the Outer Hebrides and Orkney; Yalden 1982), so this is one way that it may have colonized Ireland, perhaps from a distant source (as suggested for the pine marten). It is also a species that might have been able to colonize overland from Britain; Yalden (1981Yalden ( , 1982Yalden ( , 1999 has studied the habitat requirements and behaviour of this species and concluded that it would have been able to travel over a low-lying marshy landbridge of the sort that may temporarily have linked Britain and Ireland.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is also uncertain whether any land connections linked Ireland to a British source of temperate terrestrial species at the end of the last glaciation (Stuart 1995). Yalden (1982) and Devoy (1985) suggested the possibility of a single short-lived land-bridge between southwest Scotland and the north of Ireland, and Wingfield (1995) proposed a moving temporary land-bridge that first joined southeast Ireland and southwest England and ultimately joined eastern Ireland and northern England. As an alternative to overland colonization, Ireland could have acquired its current fauna by a combination of active dispersal using airborne or aquatic routes and passive disper-sal mediated by human introductions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How did pygmy shrews colonize Ireland? Clues from a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial cytochromebsequences

Mascheretti

Rogatcheva

Gündüz

et al. 2003

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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There is a long-standing debate as to how Ireland attained its present fauna; we help to inform this debate with a molecular study of one species. A 1110 base pair fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene was sequenced in 74 specimens of the pygmy shrew, Sorex minutus, collected from throughout its western Palaearctic range. Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences revealed several well-supported lineages. Most of the 65 haplotypes belonged to a northern lineage, which ranged from Britain in the west to Lake Baikal in the east. The other lineages were largely limited to Iberia, Italy and the Balkans. One exception, however, was a lineage found in both Ireland and Andorra. This affinity, and the large difference between the mitochondrial sequences of Irish and British individuals, suggest that pygmy shrews did not colonize Ireland via a land connection from Britain, as has been previously supposed, but instead were introduced by boat from southwest continental Europe. All the Irish pygmy shrews analysed were identical or very similar in cytochrome b sequence, suggesting an extreme founding event.

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