Genetic variation and phylogeography of alpine ground beetle (Coleoptera, Carabidae)in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Yi-Ming Weng, 翁逸明
• Other Authors: Wen-Bin Yeh
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70853919616182500084

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 昆蟲學系所 === 101 === Over 600 species in the Carabidae were recorded Taiwan including some species, distributing in high elevation mountain area, dwelled in separate mountain ranges such as Xueshan Range, Central Mountain Range, and Yushan Range formed the so call “mountain-island distribution”. The issue of glacial refugia has been debated on mountain-island distributing species for many years. Two hypotheses have been proposed, Nunatak refugia hypothesis was brought out firstly and emphasized that the high mountain organisms stay in situ in high elevation during glaciations; while migration hypothesis documented that high mountain organisms would migrate to the better habitats for surviving. In this study, four genes, including COI, 16S rDNA, 28S rDNA, and wingless of Nebria and Leistus with other alpine ground beetles were used to reconstruct phylogenetic inferences and to infer genetic variation, and then to examine the possible glacial refugia. Results show N. uenoiana and the northern populations of L. nokoensis involving certain degree of gene flow between different mountain populations, supporting the migration hypothesis, while species of N. formosana, N. niitakana and Mt. Jade population of L. nokoensis show great divergences between populations, supporting nunatak hypothesis. Though the COI distances between divergent populations are all over 2%, the differentiation in morphological characters among populations was observed only in N. niitakana. Moreover, the colonization time of N. formosana and N. niitakana can be traced back to 1.3 to 1.5 mya, and the endemic speciation events might occurr between 0.8 and 1.3 mya; while the population differentiation among mountain ranges were mostly occurred between 0.4 and 0.6 mya and the migration between populations was commonly found in the recent 0.3 mya. In conclusion, mountain-island distribution patterns of alpine carabids are depended on species, divergent time, or migration paths. Glacial refugia of alpine carabids are not in the same pattern.