Université de Fribourg

Past climate‐driven range shifts and population genetic diversity in arctic plants

Pellissier, Loïc ; Eidesen, Pernille Bronken ; Ehrich, Dorothee ; Descombes, Patrice ; Schönswetter, Peter ; Tribsch, Andreas ; Westergaard, Kristine Bakke ; Alvarez, Nadir ; Guisan, Antoine ; Zimmermann, Niklaus E. ; Normand, Signe ; Vittoz, Pascal ; Luoto, Miska ; Damgaard, Christian ; Brochmann, Christian ; Wisz, Mary S. ; Alsos, Inger Greve

In: Journal of Biogeography, 2015, p. -

High intra-specific genetic diversity is necessary for species adaptation to novel environments under climate change, but species tracking suitable conditions are losing alleles through successive founder events during range shift. Here, we investigated the relationship between range shift since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and extant population genetic diversity across multiple plant species...

Université de Fribourg

Shift in cytotype frequency and niche space in the invasive plant Centaurea maculosa

Treier, Urs A. ; Broennimann, Olivier ; Normand, Signe ; Guisan, Antoine ; Schaffner, Urs ; Steinger, Thomas ; Müller-Schärer, Heinz

In: Ecology, 2009, vol. 90, no. 5, p. 1366-1377

Polyploidy is often assumed to increase the spread and thus the success of alien plant species, but few empirical studies exist. We tested this hypothesis with Centaurea maculosa Lam., a species native to Europe and introduced into North America approximately 120 years ago where it became highly invasive. We analyzed the ploidy level of more than 2000 plants from 93 native and 48 invasive C....