Pleistocene range expansion throughout the Mediterranean and back-colonization from the Canary Islands in the legume Bituminaria bituminosa

Aim: Species with widespread distributions offer excellent opportunities for investigating recent biogeographical patterns across broad scales. Here, we tested the hypothesis that, due to its intermediate geographical location, NW Africa is pivotal in explaining the phylogeographical patterns of taxa with Mediterranean-Macaronesian distributions using a legume species with short generation times.

Region: Mediterranean, with a focus on NW Africa and the Canary Islands

Taxon: Pitch trefoil ( Bituminaria bituminosa)

Methods: We generated genetic data and performed phylogeographical and demographic analyses at two geographical scales: Mediterranean Basin (MB), using plastid sequences (115 individuals), and Macaronesia, using plastid sequences (182 individuals) and 10 nuclear microsatellite loci (220 individuals). We also performed a literature survey focusing on phylogeographical studies of other circum-Mediterranean taxa.

Results: North-west Africa was identified as a center of...

研究目的：分布范围广泛的物种为大尺度范围内的近期生物地理格局研究提供了绝佳契机。本研究以世代周期较短的豆科物种为实验材料，验证了如下假说：由于西北非处于适中的地理位置，其对于解释具有地中海-马卡罗尼西亚分布型的类群的系统地理格局具有关键作用。
研究区域：地中海区域，重点聚焦西北非与加那利群岛。
研究类群：沥青三叶草（Pitch trefoil, Bituminaria bituminosa）。
研究方法：本研究在两个地理尺度下开展遗传数据获取及系统地理、种群历史动态分析：其一为地中海盆地（Mediterranean Basin, MB），采用质体序列（样本量115份个体）；其二为马卡罗尼西亚区域，采用质体序列（样本量182份个体）与10个核微卫星位点（样本量220份个体）。此外，本研究还开展了针对其他环地中海类群系统地理研究的文献调研。
研究结果：西北非被确定为...的核心区域