Abstract
High elevation temperate mountains have long been considered species poor owing to high extinction or low speciation rates during the Pleistocene. We performed a phylogenetic and population genomic investigation of an emblematic high-elevation plant clade (Androsace sect. Aretia, 31 currently recognized species), based on plant surveys conducted during alpinism expeditions. We inferred that this clade originated in the Miocene and continued diversifying through Pleistocene glaciations, and discovered three novel species of Androsace dwelling on different bedrock types on the rooftops of the Alps. This highlights that temperate high mountains have been cradles of plant diversity even during the Pleistocene, with in-situ speciation driven by the combined action of geography and geology. Our findings have an unexpected historical relevance: H.-B. de Saussure likely observed one of these species during his 1788 expedition to the Mont Blanc and we describe it here, over two hundred years after its first sighting.
Highlights
High elevation temperate mountains have long been considered species poor owing to high extinction or low speciation rates during the Pleistocene
The fact that high-elevation environments are biological deserts is generally explained by the combination of high extinction rates during Pleistocene g laciations[7,8] and low speciation rates caused by low ecosystem p roductivity[9]
Divergence time estimation performed with penalized-likelihood on the ML phylogeny and calibrated with ages derived from a previous study of Primulaceae suggested that all five subclades might have originated before the Pleistocene, possibly in the Pliocene (Fig. 1B, Fig. S2, SI Sect. 2.2)
Summary
31 currently recognized species), based on plant surveys conducted during alpinism expeditions We inferred that this clade originated in the Miocene and continued diversifying through Pleistocene glaciations, and discovered three novel species of Androsace dwelling on different bedrock types on the rooftops of the Alps. This highlights that temperate high mountains have been cradles of plant diversity even during the Pleistocene, with in-situ speciation driven by the combined action of geography and geology.
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