When environmental changes do not cause geographic separation of fauna: Differential responses of Baikalian invertebrates

Fazalova, V., Nevado, B., Peretolchina, T., Petunina, J., & Sherbakov, D. (2010). When environmental changes do not cause geographic separation of fauna: Differential responses of Baikalian invertebrates. BMC Evolutionary Biology no.320. 10.1186/1471-2148-10-320.

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Abstract

Background: While the impact of climate fluctuations on the demographic histories of species caused by changes in habitat availability is well studied, populations of species from systems without geograhic isolation have received comparatively little attention. Using CO1 mitochondrial sequences, we anaysed phylogeographic patterns and demographic histories of populations of five species (four gastropd and one amphipod species) co-occurring in the southwestern shore of Lake Baikal, an area where environmental oscillations have not resulted in geographical isolation of habitats.

Results: Species with stronger habitat preferences (gastropods B. turriformis, B. carinata and B. carnatocostata) exhibit rather stable population sizes through their evolutionary history, and their phlogeographic pattern indicates moderate habitat fragmentation. Conversely, species without strong habitat preference (gastropod M. herderiana and amphipod G. fasciatus) exhibit haplotype networks with a very abundant and widespread central haplotype and a big number of singleton haplotypes, while their reconstructed demographic histories show a population expansion starting about 25-50 thousand years ao, a period marked by climate warming and increase in diatom abundance as inferred from bottom-lake sedimentary cores.

Conclusions: In agreement with previous studies, we found that species reacted differently to the same environmental changes. Our results highlight the important role of dispersal ability and degree of ecological specialization in defining a species response to environmental changes.

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