A. Hobaek et Lj. Weider, A circumpolar study of Arctic biodiversity: Phylogeographic patterns in the Daphnia pulex complex, AMBIO, 28(3), 1999, pp. 245-250
Citations number
26
Categorie Soggetti
Environment/Ecology,"Environmental Engineering & Energy
We summarize the results of a circumarctic study on biogeographic patterns
in genetic diversity within asexual clones of the water flea, the Daphnia p
ulex complex (a freshwater crustacean). The complex is shown to consist of
several thousands of distinct clones, which can be grouped into 2 major lin
eage groups based on molecular markers. The main groups and their component
subgroups differ markedly in their distributions, and hybrids are common i
n 2 zones of overlap (Northern Europe and Canada). Clonal diversity is at l
east as high in the Arctic as in the temperate zone. Moreover, the genetic
structure of all the subgroups is extremely fragmented, implying that clona
l composition in the Arctic differs conspicuously among regions. This extra
ordinary diversity with its spatial structure on local to continental geogr
aphic scales defies the general notion of the Arctic tundra as a homogenous
biome of low biodiversity.