Data from: The extreme disjunction between Beringia and Europe in Ranunculus glacialis s. l. (Ranunculaceae) does not coincide with the deepest genetic split – a story of the importance of temperate mountain ranges in arctic-alpine phylogeography

The arctic–alpine Ranunculus glacialis s. l. is distributed in
high-mountain ranges of temperate Europe and in the North, where it
displays an extreme disjunction between the North Atlantic Arctic and
Beringia. Based on comprehensive sampling and employing plastid and
nuclear marker systems, we (i) test whether the European/Beringian
disjunction correlates with the main evolutionary diversification, (ii)
reconstruct the phylogeographic history in the Arctic and in temperate
mountains and (iii) assess the susceptibility of arctic and mountain
populations to climate change. Both data sets revealed several
well-defined lineages, mostly with a coherent geographic distribution. The
deepest evolutionary split did not coincide with the European/Beringian
disjunction but occurred within the Alps. The Beringian lineage and North
Atlantic Arctic populations, which reached their current distribution via
rapid postglacial colonization, show connections to two divergent pools of
Central European populations. Thus, immigration into the Arctic probably
occurred at least twice. The presence of a rare cpDNA lineage related to
Beringia in the Carpathians supports the role of these mountains as a
stepping stone between temperate Europe and the non-European Arctic, and
as an important area of high-mountain biodiversity. The temperate and
arctic ranges presented contrasting phylogeographic histories: a largely
static distribution in the former and rapid latitudinal spread in the
latter. The persistence of ancient lineages with a strictly regional
distribution suggests that the ability of R. glacialis to survive repeated
climatic changes within southern mountain ranges is greater than what
recently was predicted for alpine plants from climatic envelope modelling.