Abstract
Postglacial recolonisation patterns are well documented for the Northern Hemisphere biota, but comparable processes in the Southern Hemisphere have only recently been examined. In the largely terrestrial Northern Hemisphere, recession of ice after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) allowed various taxa, including slow-moving terrestrial species, to migrate poleward. By contrast, the Southern Hemisphere polar region is completely ringed by ocean, and recolonisation of Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands has thus presented considerable challenges. Although a few highly dispersive marine species have been able to recolonise postglacially, most surviving high-latitude taxa appear to have persisted throughout glacial maxima in local refugia. These contrasting patterns highlight the importance of habitat continuity in facilitating biological range shifts in response to climate change.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 462-471 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Trends in Ecology and Evolution |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2012 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Godfrey Hewitt, Peter Convey and two anonymous reviewers and Paul Craze for comments that helped improve the manuscript. We apologise to the authors of several relevant papers that could not be included in this review owing to space restrictions. We acknowledge support from the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) of Belgium (C.I.F.), the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, New Zealand (R.N. and J.M.W.), and a Canadian NSERC Discovery grant (D.E.R.). Thanks to Santjie du Toit (South African National Antarctic Program) for the nunatak photograph inset in Figure 1 . D.E.R. thanks S. Walde for discussions and C.I.F. thanks Bruno Danis for technical advice.
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
