Publication Date:
2012-03-03
Description:
It is commonly believed that trees were absent in Scandinavia during the last glaciation and first recolonized the Scandinavian Peninsula with the retreat of its ice sheet some 9000 years ago. Here, we show the presence of a rare mitochondrial DNA haplotype of spruce that appears unique to Scandinavia and with its highest frequency to the west-an area believed to sustain ice-free refugia during most of the last ice age. We further show the survival of DNA from this haplotype in lake sediments and pollen of Trondelag in central Norway dating back ~10,300 years and chloroplast DNA of pine and spruce in lake sediments adjacent to the ice-free Andoya refugium in northwestern Norway as early as ~22,000 and 17,700 years ago, respectively. Our findings imply that conifer trees survived in ice-free refugia of Scandinavia during the last glaciation, challenging current views on survival and spread of trees as a response to climate changes.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Parducci, Laura -- Jorgensen, Tina -- Tollefsrud, Mari Mette -- Elverland, Ellen -- Alm, Torbjorn -- Fontana, Sonia L -- Bennett, K D -- Haile, James -- Matetovici, Irina -- Suyama, Yoshihisa -- Edwards, Mary E -- Andersen, Kenneth -- Rasmussen, Morten -- Boessenkool, Sanne -- Coissac, Eric -- Brochmann, Christian -- Taberlet, Pierre -- Houmark-Nielsen, Michael -- Larsen, Nicolaj Krog -- Orlando, Ludovic -- Gilbert, M Thomas P -- Kjaer, Kurt H -- Alsos, Inger Greve -- Willerslev, Eske -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Mar 2;335(6072):1083-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1216043.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Ecology and Genetics, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22383845" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Base Sequence
;
DNA, Chloroplast/genetics
;
DNA, Mitochondrial/genetics
;
*Ecosystem
;
Europe
;
*Fossils
;
Geologic Sediments
;
Haplotypes
;
*Ice Cover
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Mutation
;
Norway
;
*Picea/genetics
;
*Pinus/genetics
;
Scandinavian and Nordic Countries
;
Time
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
