Abstract
Comparison of mitochondrial DNA variation among populations of three endemic lizard species in Australia's Wet Tropics rainforest reveals clear evidence of population-level response to Pleistocene rainforest contraction and subsequent expansion. This pattern is repeated in two separate rainforest regions (natural replicates), between which populations have been separated for several million years. Despite evidence for isolation in rainforest refugia, historically reduced effective population size, and recent range expansion, little or no detectable phenotypic evolution has occurred among populations, even those isolated for several million years. These observations suggest that long-term isolation per se, even when combined with major reductions in population size and opportunities for drift and founder effects, is unlikely to be the primary process driving phenotypic divergence and speciation of rainforest vertebrates.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (156.4 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Birky C. W., Jr, Fuerst P., Maruyama T. Organelle gene diversity under migration, mutation, and drift: equilibrium expectations, approach to equilibrium, effects of heteroplasmic cells, and comparison to nuclear genes. Genetics. 1989 Mar;121(3):613–627. doi: 10.1093/genetics/121.3.613. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Birky C. W., Jr, Maruyama T., Fuerst P. An approach to population and evolutionary genetic theory for genes in mitochondria and chloroplasts, and some results. Genetics. 1983 Mar;103(3):513–527. doi: 10.1093/genetics/103.3.513. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Excoffier L., Smouse P. E., Quattro J. M. Analysis of molecular variance inferred from metric distances among DNA haplotypes: application to human mitochondrial DNA restriction data. Genetics. 1992 Jun;131(2):479–491. doi: 10.1093/genetics/131.2.479. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Haffer J. Speciation in amazonian forest birds. Science. 1969 Jul 11;165(3889):131–137. doi: 10.1126/science.165.3889.131. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Joseph L., Moritz C., Hugall A. Molecular support for vicariance as a source of diversity in rainforest. Proc Biol Sci. 1995 May 22;260(1358):177–182. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1995.0077. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Joseph L., Moritz C. Phylogeny and historical aspects of the ecology of eastern Australian scrubwrens Sericornis spp.--evidence from mitochondrial DNA. Mol Ecol. 1993 Jun;2(3):161–170. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294x.1993.tb00105.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kocher T. D., Thomas W. K., Meyer A., Edwards S. V., Päbo S., Villablanca F. X., Wilson A. C. Dynamics of mitochondrial DNA evolution in animals: amplification and sequencing with conserved primers. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Aug;86(16):6196–6200. doi: 10.1073/pnas.86.16.6196. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- doi: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0185. [DOI] [PMC free article] [Google Scholar]
- Rogers A. R., Harpending H. Population growth makes waves in the distribution of pairwise genetic differences. Mol Biol Evol. 1992 May;9(3):552–569. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040727. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Slatkin M., Hudson R. R. Pairwise comparisons of mitochondrial DNA sequences in stable and exponentially growing populations. Genetics. 1991 Oct;129(2):555–562. doi: 10.1093/genetics/129.2.555. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Templeton A. R., Routman E., Phillips C. A. Separating population structure from population history: a cladistic analysis of the geographical distribution of mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in the tiger salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum. Genetics. 1995 Jun;140(2):767–782. doi: 10.1093/genetics/140.2.767. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Williams S. E., Pearson R. G. Historical rainforest contractions, localized extinctions and patterns of vertebrate endemism in the rainforests of Australia's wet tropics. Proc Biol Sci. 1997 May 22;264(1382):709–716. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1997.0101. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]