CONTENS - International Organization of Plant Biosystematists

O 11
When phylogeography meets biogeography: Inter- and intraspecific
differentiation and genetic diversity in alpine plants
Conny Thiel-Egenter 1 , Felix Gugerli
1 , Nadir Alvarez 2 , Thorsten Englisch 3 , Rolf
Holderegger 1 & IntraBioDiv-Consortium 4
1 Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf,
Switzerland; conny.thiel@wsl.ch, 2 Laboratoire de Botanique Evolutive Université de
Neuchâtel 11, rue Emile-Argand CH-2007 Neuchâtel, Switzerland;
nadir.alvarez@unine.ch, 3 Department of Biogeography, Institute of Botany, University
of Vienna, Rennweg 14, A-1030 Vienna, Austria; thorsten.englisch@univie.ac.at &
4 www.intrabiodiv.eu/IMG/pdf/IntraBioDiv_Consortium_v10.pdf
There is a long history of studying the flora in the European Alps and its
biogeography. Since the early 19 th century, scientists have attempted to localize
floristically similar regions and its delimitations. Here, we propose a new approach to
geographically identify biogeographic breaks. We use an exhaustive dataset of the
distribution of alpine plant species, compiled within the project IntraBioDiv. Data on
species occurrences refer to a regular spatial grid across the whole range of the Alps.
On the same grid, we assessed the genetic structure of several widely distributed
alpine plant species to identify common phylogeographic breaks. We found that
biogeographic and phylogeographic breaks were largely congruent, indicating that
historical processes acted at both the genetic and the species level in the same
direction. We further assessed genetic diversity of these plant species in the Alps and
the Carpathians to test the influence of various species traits, elevation and
phylogeographic history on genetic diversity. Species dispersed and pollinated by
wind showed higher genetic diversity than species with self or insect pollination and
animal or gravity dispersal. Genetic diversity was generally lower in the Carpathians
than in the Alps, due to higher topographical isolation of alpine habitats in the
Carpathians and this mountain massif’s divergent phylogeographic history. Elevation
did not influence genetic diversity, challenging the long-held view of decreasing
genetic diversity with increasing elevation in mountain plants.
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