Phylogeography of black bears (Ursus americanus) of the Pacific Northwest

Phylogeographic study across codistributed taxa provides temporal and spati al perspectives on the assemblage of communities. A repeated pattern of int raspecific diversification within several taxa of the Pacific Northwest has been documented, and we contribute additional information to this growing data set. We analyzed variation in two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome b an d control region) for the black bear (Ursus americanus) and expand previous analyses of phylogeographic variation. Two lineages (coastal and continent al) exist; the coastal lineage extends along the Pacific coast from the Tak hin River north of Glacier Bay National Park, southeast Alaska, to northern California, whereas the continental lineage is more widespread, occurring from central Alaska to the east coast. Both lineages occur along the coast of southeast Alaska, where interlineage divergence ranged from 3.1 to 3.6% (uncorrected p distances). Multiple lineages of other species have also bee n identified from southeast Alaska, indicating a complex history for the as sembly of biotic communities along the North Pacific coast. The overlapping of the distributions of the black bear lineages with those of other birds and mammals suggests comparable routes of colonization.