Refugia

Extrait : "Que pensez-vous qu’il faille faire pour arrêter ce massacre ? et l’ONU est-il en partie responsable de laisser faire ?

C’est une question très difficile et personne ne détient la solution miracle. Cependant, ce que nous avons toujours exiger, c’est l’arrêt immédiat des exactions et le rétablissement de l’accès aux humanitaires. Pour y arriver, les efforts doivent se faire aussi bien à l’intérieur du pays (le gouvernement, les partis politiques, la société civile Birman) mais aussi de l’extérieur, à travers la pression de la communauté internationale en misant sur l’action additionnée de divers organes tels que les institutions représentatives internationales (ONU, Commissions Européens, l’action de l’ASEAN…Etc.), les différentes sociétés civiles dans le monde (ONG, manifestations…etc.), mise en place de mesures et sanctions efficaces (embargo économiques et militaires…) par des compagnes de boycotts et de sensibilisation a plus large échelle".

The distribution of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) variations in Greek beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) populations was studied using chloroplast microsatellite markers. Thirteen haplotypes were identified from 40 populations by combining three different primers. Most of the cpDNA variation was distributed among populations, but a considerable variation was also observed within populations. The total diversity was very high for all regions. The Nst/Gst comparison was significant, indicating phylogenetic subdivision, but no strong spatial structure was detected, suggesting complex post-glacial migration patterns. Possible scenarios explaining this diversity pattern include the existence of several separated refugia in the region, the recolonisation of mountains by different beech lineages and the formation of an introgression zone between two different beech subspecies in the eastern part of the country.

To ensure the long-term persistence of biodiversity, conservation strategies must account for the entire range of climate change impacts. A variety of spatial prioritisation techniques have been developed to incorporate climate change. Here, we provide the first standardised review of these approaches. Using a systematic search, we analysed peer-reviewed spatial prioritisation publications (n = 46) and found that the most common approaches (n = 41, 89%) utilised forecasts of species distributions and aimed to either protect future species habitats (n = 24, 52%) or identify climate refugia to shelter species from climate change (n = 17, 37%). Other approaches (n = 17, 37%) used well-established conservation planning principles to combat climate change, aimed at broadly increasing either connectivity (n = 11, 24%) or the degree of heterogeneity of abiotic factors captured in the planning process (n = 8, 17%), with some approaches combining multiple goals. We also find a strong terrestrial focus (n = 35, 76%), and heavy geographical bias towards North America (n = 8, 17%) and Australia (n = 11, 24%). While there is an increasing trend of incorporating climate change into spatial prioritisation, we found that serious gaps in current methodologies still exist. Future research must focus on developing methodologies that allow planners to incorporate human responses to climate change and recognise that discrete climate impacts (e.g. extreme events), which are increasing in frequency and severity, must be addressed within the spatial prioritisation framework. By identifying obvious gaps and highlighting future research needs this review will help practitioners better plan for conservation action in the face of multiple threats including climate change.

1939-2005) zum Gedenken (LinzlDonau, 17.-21. Juli 2005) Herausgegeben von HELMLTT BIRKHAN unter Mitwirkung von Hannes Tauber . Verlag der • Österreichischen Akademie PAlI der Wissenschaften .m. m Wien 2007 OAW Vorgelegt von w. M. Helmut Birkhan in der Sitzung am 23. Juni 2006 Die Umschlagabbildung "Die Keltike aus Linzer Sicht" wurde von Chieh Hsu (ARZ der ÖAW) nach einer Idee von Helmut Birkhan gestaltet. Umschlaglayout: H. Weinberger (ÖAW) Die verwendete Papiersorte ist aus chlorfrei gebleichtem Zellstoff hergestellt, frei von säurebildenden Bestandteilen und alterungsbeständig.

The Late Glacial was a slow gradual warming associated with short, cold events that occurred between 18.0 and 11.7 ka cal. BP. Pollen analyses from deep-sea and lacustrine cores have well documented the evolution of floral communities in western Europe and suggest that climatic fluctuations influenced the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems. However, the exact impact of these climate changes on small faunal communities in southwest France is still poorly documented. Peyrazet Cave is an archaeological site located in the Lot (France) that has been excavated since 2008 and has yielded a Late Glacial sequence dated between 15.5 and 11.1 ka cal. BP. Thousands of small faunal remains resulting from a natural accumulation have been recovered. Investigation of this material has surprisingly revealed remains of two rodents that currently inhabit Central and Eastern Europe, the northern birch mouse (Sicista betu-lina) and the European hamster (Cricetus cricetus). The presence of these two taxa, which had migrated from the east and had been never documented in this region before the Late Glacial, is most likely related to short climatic fluctuations in the Late Glacial, suggesting more complex scenarios than traditionally accepted to explain the evolution of small faunal communities between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Holocene.

Pensare-con: come si mescola la pratica filosofica con l’arte
del racconto. Nell’opera di Anna Tsing l’intreccio con il pensiero di Donna Haraway e Ursula K. Le Guin parla di una possibile rinascita olocenica, di refugia, e di commons in alternativa alla “ecologia della distruzione” tipica dell’Antropocene

Homo sapiens have adapted to an incredible diversity of habitats around the globe. This capacity to adapt to different landscapes is clearly expressed within Africa, with Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens populations occupying savannahs, woodlands, coastlines and mountainous terrain. As the only area of the world where Homo sapiens have clearly persisted through multiple glacial-interglacial cycles, Africa is the only continent where classic refugia models can be formulated and tested to examine and describe changing patterns of past distributions and human phylogeographies. The potential role of refugia has frequently been acknowledged in the Late Pleistocene palaeoanthropological literature, yet explicit identification of potential refugia has been limited by the patchy nature of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records, and the low temporal resolution of climate or ecological models. Here, we apply potential climatic thresholds on human habitation, rooted in ethnographic studies, in combination with high-resolution model datasets for precipitation and biome distributions to identify persistent refugia spanning the Late Pleistocene (130–10 ka). We present two alternate models suggesting that between 27% and 66% of Africa may have provided refugia to Late Pleistocene human populations, and examine variability in precipitation, biome and ecotone distributions within these refugial zones.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Tropical forests in the deep human past’.

Identification of refugia from climate change is increasingly considered important for biodiversity conservation, but the distribution of putative refugia may vary across alternative climate scenarios, impeding conservation decision-making. Based on 117 plant species representative of ecoregions within south-eastern Australia, we provide a case study identifying in situ refugia across a spectrum of plausible future climates. We define in situ refugia as areas that currently contain populations of the target species, and are projected to remain climatically suitable in the future. Refugia were identified across scenarios describing futures that are, relative to 1990–2009, warmer and wetter, warmer/drier, hotter/wetter, and hotter with little precipitation change. Despite substantial variation in the spatial extent and longevity of climate refugia across species, ecoregions and climate scenarios, clear patterns emerged. By 2070, refugia for species in i) deserts and xeric shrublands; ...

The Mountain Black-eye (Chlorocharis emiliae) is an endemic white-eye (Zosteropidae) of Borneo with a unique ''sky island'' distribution. We compared mitochondrial ND2, ND3, Cytb, and control region DNA sequences (2,194 nucleotides) to study the phylogeographic relationships of five populations of this species that span its range: Mounts Kinabalu, Trus Madi, Murud, Mulu, and Pueh. These comparisons showed that black-eyes are divided into two main clades that correspond generally to subspecific morphological groups: one in Sabah, Malaysia (Kinabalu and Trus Madi), and one in Sarawak, Malaysia (Murud, Mulu, and Pueh). The genetic and morphologic subdivision of black-eyes disputes the expected merging of populations during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), when montane forest presumably expanded and provided the opportunity for currently isolated populations to intermingle. Instead the genetic aging of black-eye populations indicates they diversified long before the LGM, and either did not expand sufficiently in range during the LGM to reach one another, or were reproductively isolated by the time of the LGM and thus prevented from interbreeding. Moreover, the subdivision between black-eyes in Sabah and Sarawak means that this species (and probably several other montane species) has a phylogeographic structure remarkably similar to Borneo's lowland bird populations, which are presumed to have evolved under different paleo-geographic conditions. The similar phylogeographic pattern found in both montane and lowland species requires that we rethink the causes of bird population diversification on the island of Borneo.

Aim The post-glacial range dynamics of many European plant species have been widely investigated, but information rapidly diminishes as one moves further back in time. Here we infer the historical range shifts of Laurus, a paradigmatic tree of the Tethyan flora that has covered southern Eurasia since the Oligo-Miocene, by means of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analyses.

Many desert organisms cope with extreme and variable conditions by retreating to sub-surface refugia, yet little is known of the patterns of refuge use by most desert inhabitants. We investigated shelter use by the Gila Monster, Heloderma suspectum, an ectotherm closely tied to sub-surface refugia in a strongly seasonal desert environment. We addressed hypotheses that ectotherms may use habitats based on availability of shelters, select shelters based on particular cues, respond to seasonal variation in refuge characteristics, and show fidelity to specific retreats. Using radiotelemetry, we monitored microhabitat use by eight to ten Gila Monsters for six years, recording timing, frequency, and duration of visitation to over 250 specific shelters. We used transects to assess shelter availability, recorded structural features of all shelters, and used dataloggers to monitor seasonal changes in microenvironments within subsets of shelters for periods up to two years. Shelters, and the habitats where they occurred, were not chosen by Gila Monsters at random. Heloderma spent more time in areas where a higher density of potential shelters was available, and selected shelters based on rockiness, slope and entrance aspect, depth, humidity, and temperature. Gila Monsters showed longer residence times and greater fidelity to shelters used during extreme periods (e.g., winter) and these patterns were paralleled by seasonal changes in the characteristics of shelters chosen. Winter shelters tended to be south-facing, rockier, deeper, and warmer than those used in other seasons, whereas dry-summer shelters were more soil-like in composition, cooler, and more humid. Gila Monsters showed strong fidelity to specific shelters, some of which were used by two or more lizards, sometimes concurrently. Seasonal variation in use of ''social'' shelters coincided with annual cycles of intraspecific behaviors and reproduction. Our results underscore the importance of sub-surface refugia in the ecology of a sedentary desert ectotherm. Because many other ectotherms also spend significant periods sequestered in below-ground retreats, it is surprising that ecologists have not more extensively investigated this phenomenon. An understanding of the cues used by desert ectotherms to choose refuge-sites, the spatial and temporal variability in refuge characteristics, and the fidelity shown to particular retreats, may help better explain patterns of habitat selection, behavior, distribution, and abundance.

"The population genetics of P. lucasi was inferred using 1,061 base pairs (bp) of the Cytochrome b mitochondrial gene. A total of 77 individuals were classified a priori according to their localities, namely, Miri, Kuching, Sri Aman and Kelantan. Results showed that the populations of P. lucasi were separated into two haplogroups, namely, Haplogroup 1 (found in Miri and Kuching populations) and Haplogroup 2 (Miri, Kuching, Sri Aman and Kelantan populations). This separation was supported by bootstrap values in the phylogenetics analyses (94.9% in the maximum likelihood and 100% in Bayesian). A high level of genetic divergence was detected between two haplogroups (3.88%) and this separation could be related to historical events which include multiple colonisation and Pleistocene refugia during the Last Glacial Maximum ice age period. High genetic divergence within Miri (4.93%) and Kuching (4.72%) populations could be due to the presence of a species complex within the P. lucasi populations. The presence of haplotypes
from both the populations in Haplogroup 1 and Haplogroup 2 might be due to the ability of this particular species of bats to perform long-distance flight for foraging. A high gene flow between these populations suggests a widespread female gene flow of P. lucasi, judging from the distance of both localities. Meanwhile, the absence of a deep structure from the haplotype trees further proves that P. lucasi may have had a wide dispersal ability since the Pleistocene has allowed for genetic exchange to occur between the regions in Malaysia."

Seed ferns, dominant elements of the vegetation in many parts of the world from the Triassic to Cretaceous, were considered to have disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous together with several other groups that had occupied key positions in terrestrial and marine ecosystems such as dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, and ammonoids. Seed-fern demise is generally correlated with competition from diversifying flowering plants through the Cretaceous and the global environmental crisis related to the Chicxulub impact event in the paleotropics at the end of the period. New fossils from Tasmania show that one seed-fern lineage survived into the Cenozoic by at least 13 million years. These fossils are described here as a new species, Komlopteris cenozoicus . Komlopteris is a genus of seed ferns attributed to Corystospermaceae and until now was not known from sediments younger than the Early Cretaceous. Discovery of this “Lazarus taxon,” together with the presence of a range of other relictual fossil and extant organisms in Tasmania, other southern Gondwanan provinces, and some regions of northern North America and Asia, underscores high-latitude regions as biodiversity refugia during global environmental crises and highlights their importance as sources of postextinction radiations.

In this paper we present a multi-proxy study of tropical limestone forest and its utilization by human groups during the major climatic and environmental upheavals of MIS-2 (29-11.7 ka BP). Our data are drawn from new field research within the Tràng An World Heritage property, on the edge of the Red River Delta, northern Vietnam. Key findings from this study include 1) that limestone forest formations were resilient to the large-scale landscape transformation and inundation of the Sunda continent at the end of the last glaciation; 2) that prehistoric human groups were probably present in this habitat throughout MIS-2; and 3) that the forested, almost insular, karst of Tràng An provided foragers with a stable resource-base in a wider changing landscape. These results have implications for our understanding of the prehistoric utilization of karst environments and resonance for conservation efforts in the face of climate and environmental change today. many parts of the dry tropics (e.g.

Examines the category 'social science fiction', showing how it has developed to accommodate feminist perspectives and, to a lesser degree, post-colonial viewpoints. Discusses how social science vignettes were used in Refugia, the fictive entity invented by Cohen and Van Hear to accommodate displaced people.

Aim: we aimed to assess the generality of existing models of late Quaternary biodiversity refugia in the Brazilian Atlantic forest by testing whether taxo-nomic identity and range descriptors influence the extent by which previously proposed models of forest (habitat) refugia successfully predict species' inferred refugial areas.

Location: brazilian rain forest.

Methods: we compiled and filtered records of 14 animal species that belong to distantly related groups (spiders, harvestmen, scorpions, amphibians, birds, lizards and mammals) and show distinct distribution patterns within the Atlantic rain forest. Using MAXENT, we generated three distribution models for each species under different climatic scenarios (current, 6000 and 21,000 years ago). Species-specific historically stable areas (refugia) were identified through the intersection of the three models. We then measured the amount of 'inclusion' of species-specific refugia within published forest refugia, and quantified 'filling' of the biome refugia by species-specific refugia. The influence of taxonomic distance between species and range descriptors were analysed.

Results: current distribution models generated for the 14 species had high accuracy (AUC > 0.9). Inclusion and filling, two uncorrelated metrics, varied among species and were not influenced by taxonomic identity. Species range characteristics influenced forest model filling only, with higher values found in widely distributed species (i.e. occurring from Northeastern to Southeastern Brazil).

Main conclusions: species-specific and forest refugial areas are not necessarily the same. The power of forest refugial models to predict species-specific refugial area differs among species and may be influenced by range attributes. Species data suggests the existence of a large refugium in Southeast of Brazil, a result at odds with the currently available forest-wide models. The predictive power of forest refugial models is narrowed; we now better understand their applicability limits.

The Mountain Black-eye (Chlorocharis emiliae) is an endemic white-eye (Zosteropidae) of Borneo with a unique ''sky island'' distribution. We compared mitochondrial ND2, ND3, Cytb, and control region DNA sequences (2,194 nucleotides) to study the phylogeographic relationships of five populations of this species that span its range: Mounts Kinabalu, Trus Madi, Murud, Mulu, and Pueh. These comparisons showed that black-eyes are divided into two main clades that correspond generally to subspecific morphological groups: one in Sabah, Malaysia (Kinabalu and Trus Madi), and one in Sarawak, Malaysia (Murud, Mulu, and Pueh). The genetic and morphologic subdivision of black-eyes disputes the expected merging of populations during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), when montane forest presumably expanded and provided the opportunity for currently isolated populations to intermingle. Instead the genetic aging of black-eye populations indicates they diversified long before the LGM, and either did not expand sufficiently in range during the LGM to reach one another, or were reproductively isolated by the time of the LGM and thus prevented from interbreeding. Moreover, the subdivision between black-eyes in Sabah and Sarawak means that this species (and probably several other montane species) has a phylogeographic structure remarkably similar to Borneo's lowland bird populations, which are presumed to have evolved under different paleo-geographic conditions. The similar phylogeographic pattern found in both montane and lowland species requires that we rethink the causes of bird population diversification on the island of Borneo.

Protected areas are the primary strategy for maintaining natural landscapes and separating biodiversity features from preventable anthropogenic threats. The Convention on Biological Diversity calls for the coverage of at least 17% of land by protected areas, and the strategic prioritization of important biodiversity areas. Using the spatially explicit reserve design software, Marxan, this study combines climate refugia modelled under future climates in the year 2070 and bioregions to identify priority sites for protected area expansion under climate change in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Priority sites for new protected areas that meet bioregion and climate refugia targets were identified in central-western, northeast and patches of southeast NSW. Seven existing parks, including Kosciuszko National Park, overlapped with regions identified repeatedly as climate refugia under 12 future climate scenarios. The recommendations from this study support policy-makers in prioritizing the protection of biodiversity under a changing and uncertain climate.

A number of models, developed primarily in the 1980s, propose that Aboriginal Australian populations contracted to refugia e well-watered ranges and major riverine systems e in response to climatic instability, most notably around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (w23e18 ka). We evaluate these models using a comprehensive continent-wide dataset of archaeological radiocarbon ages and geospatial techniques. Calibrated median radiocarbon ages are allocated to overlapping time slices, and then K-means cluster analysis and cluster centroid and point dispersal pattern analysis are used to define Minimum Bounding Rectangles (MBR) representing human demographic patterns. Exploring data between 25 and 12 ka, we find a refugia-type hunter-gatherer response during the LGM (w23e18 ka) and again during the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR) (w14.5e12.5 ka), with expansion in the intervening period. Several refugia persist between 25 and 12 ka, including (by Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia areas) Gulf Plains/Einasleigh Uplands, Brigalow Belt South, Murray Darling Depression, and Tasmanian Central Highlands. Others appear sporadically through the same period. These include South Eastern Highlands,

Aim The post-glacial range dynamics of many European plant species have been widely investigated, but information rapidly diminishes as one moves further back in time. Here we infer the historical range shifts of Laurus, a paradigmatic tree of the Tethyan flora that has covered southern Eurasia since the Oligo-Miocene, by means of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analyses.

Phylogeographical studies are typically based on haplotype data, occasionally on nuclear markers such as microsatellites, but rarely combine both. This is unfortunate because the use of markers with contrasting modes of inheritance and rates of evolution might provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of a species' history. Here we present a detailed study of the phylogeography of the greater horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, using 1098 bp of the mitochondrial ND2 gene from 45 localities from across its Palaearctic range to infer population history. In addition, we re-analysed a large microsatellite data set available for this species and compared the results of both markers to infer population relationships and the historical processes influencing them. We show that mtDNA, the most popular marker in phylogeography studies, yielded a misleading result, and would have led us to conclude erroneously that a single expansion had taken place in Europe. Only by combining the mitochondrial and microsatellite data sets are we able to reconstruct the species' history and show two colonization events in Europe, one before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and one after it. Combining markers also revealed the importance of Asia Minor as an ancient refugium for this species and a source population for the expansion of the greater horseshoe bat into Europe before the LGM.

The Mountain Black-eye (Chlorocharis emiliae) is an endemic white-eye (Zosteropidae) of Borneo with a unique ''sky island'' distribution. We compared mitochondrial ND2, ND3, Cytb, and control region DNA sequences (2,194 nucleotides) to study the phylogeographic relationships of five populations of this species that span its range: Mounts Kinabalu, Trus Madi, Murud, Mulu, and Pueh. These comparisons showed that black-eyes are divided into two main clades that correspond generally to subspecific morphological groups: one in Sabah, Malaysia (Kinabalu and Trus Madi), and one in Sarawak, Malaysia (Murud, Mulu, and Pueh). The genetic and morphologic subdivision of black-eyes disputes the expected merging of populations during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), when montane forest presumably expanded and provided the opportunity for currently isolated populations to intermingle. Instead the genetic aging of black-eye populations indicates they diversified long before the LGM, and either did not expand sufficiently in range during the LGM to reach one another, or were reproductively isolated by the time of the LGM and thus prevented from interbreeding. Moreover, the subdivision between black-eyes in Sabah and Sarawak means that this species (and probably several other montane species) has a phylogeographic structure remarkably similar to Borneo's lowland bird populations, which are presumed to have evolved under different paleo-geographic conditions. The similar phylogeographic pattern found in both montane and lowland species requires that we rethink the causes of bird population diversification on the island of Borneo.

The Moscovian plant macroflora at Cottage Grove southeastern Illinois, USA, is a key example of Pennsylvanian (323–299 Million years ago) dryland vegetation. There is currently no palynological data fromthe same stratigraphic horizons as the plant macrofossils, leaves and other vegetative and reproductive structures, at this locality. Consequently, reconstructions of the standing vegetation at Cottage Grove from these sediments lack the complementary information and a more regional perspective that can be provided by sporomorphs (prepollen, pollen, megaspores and spores). In order to provide this, we have analysed the composition of fossil sporomorph assemblages in two rock samples taken from macrofossil-bearing
inter-coal shale at Cottage Grove. Our palynological data differ considerably in composition and in the dominance-diversity profile from the macrofossil vegetation at this locality. Walchian conifers and pteridosperms are common elements in the macroflora, but are absent in the sporomorph assemblages. Reversely, the sporomorph assemblages at Cottage Grove comprise 17 spore taxa (∼16% and
∼63% of the total assemblages) that are known from the lycopsid orders Isoetales, Lepidodendrales and Selaginallales, while Cottage Grove’s macrofloral record fails to capture evidence of a considerable population of coal forest lycopsids.We interpret our results as evidence that the Pennsylvanian dryland glacial landscape at Cottage Grove included fragmented populations of wetland plants living in refugia.

16-06-2019. Written by Jasper Steenvoorden, University of Amsterdam. Metadata for the supporting data for the article "The potential importance of unburned islands as refugia for the persistence of wildlife species in fire-prone ecosystems", submitted to Ecology & Evolution. WinRAR file contains four files, three for habitat data, one for lek count data. See details of content below. FILE: Lek_Counts_Data.csv. This .csv (comma delimited) file contains information on the observed male attendance on all analysed leks ("Lek_Number", total of 39) between 1984 to 2017. Additional columns include 1) "Fire_year", which indicates the year in which the specific lek or area around the lek was burned, and 2) "Fire_category", which represents the category (fire perimeter, unburned island, small buffer and large buffer) the lek was located in, based on spatial location in or around a fire. "NA" indicates no count was performed at that lek during a specific year. FILE: Habitat_Covariate_Data_0p8km_Scale.csv. This .csv (comma delimited) file contains information on the habitat covariate values at 0.8km scale around leks that were retrieved for the analysis on the effect of post-fire habitat composition on post-fire male attendance trends. Unburned area around each lek is added as a variable but was not used as a predictor variable due to high multicollinearity with vegetation height. Columns in this file are: "Slope_After_Fire" - percentage growth/decline of male attendance per year after lek or area around lek was burned. "Unburned_Area" - percentage unburned area around lek after lek or area around lek was burned. "Vegetation_Height_Value" - average vegetation height around lek after lek or area around lek was burned. "Elevation" - mean elevation of the area around a specific lek at 0.8km scale around lek. "Cheatgrass_Cover_Value" - percentage area around lek with unsuitable cheatgrass cover (>8% cover per pixel). FILE: Habitat_Covariate_Data_6p4km_Scale.csv. This .csv (comma delimited) file contains information on the habitat covariate values at 6.4km scale around leks that were retrieved for the analysis on the effect of post-fire habitat composition on post-fire male attendance trends. Unburned area around each lek is added as a variable but was not used as a predictor variable due to high multicollinearity with vegetation height. Columns in this file are: "Slope_After_Fire" - percentage growth/decline of male attendance per year after lek or area around lek was burned. "Unburned_Area" - percentage unburned area around lek after lek or area around lek was burned. "Vegetation_Height_Value" - average vegetation height around lek after lek or area around lek was burned. "Elevation" - mean elevation of the area around a specific lek at 6.4km scale around lek. "Cheatgrass_Cover_Value" - percentage area around lek with unsuitable cheatgrass cover (>8% cover per pixel). FILE: Habitat_Covariate_Data_18km_Scale.csv. This .csv (comma delimited) file contains information on the habitat covariate values at 18km scale around leks that were retrieved for the analysis on the effect of post-fire habitat composition on post-fire male attendance trends. Unburned area around each lek is added as a variable but was not used as a predictor variable due to high multicollinearity with vegetation height. Columns in this file are: "Slope_After_Fire" - percentage growth/decline of male attendance per year after lek or area around lek was burned. "Unburned_Area" - percentage unburned area around lek after lek or area around lek was burned. "Vegetation_Height_Value" - average vegetation height around lek after lek or area around lek was burned. "Elevation" - mean elevation of the area around a specific lek at 18km scale around lek. "Cheatgrass_Cover_Value" - percentage area around lek with unsuitable cheatgrass cover (>8% cover per pixel)

Background and Aims: Southern Arabia is a global biodiversity hotspot with a high proportion of endemic desert-adapted plants. Here we examine evidence for a Pleistocene climate refugium in the southern Central Desert of Oman, and its role in driving biogeographical patterns of endemism. Methods: Distribution data for seven narrow-range endemic plants were collected systematically across 195 quadrats, together with incidental and historic records. Important environmental variables relevant to arid coastal areas, including night time fog and cloud cover were developed for the study area. Environmental niche models were built and tuned for each species and spatial overlap examined. Key Results: A region of the Jiddat Al Arkad reported independent high model suitability for all species. Examination of environmental data across southern Oman indicates that the Jiddat Al Arkad displays a regionally unique climate with higher intra-annual stability, due in part to the influence of the sou...

Presented at the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology (CASA) conference 2018, University of Cambridge, in the session 'Refugia: Negotiating Identity in Dynamic Environments.'

Personal ornaments are elusive objects, frequently debated as either representing social status, “symbolic” behaviours, communication mechanisms, or mere embellishments. These debates present these objects as passive, only reflecting pre-existing information or relations. This perception is inherently problematic and critiqued by the use of personal ornaments in numerous non-Western societies and recent relational theories. This critique argues personal ornaments are not static and bounded, as presented in previous research, but active and entangled within the social fabric of societies. Consequently, they are agents in mediating the entanglement of object/human/animal/landscape relations. Their ability to construct and renegotiate these relations means they are a crucial mechanism in the negotiation of identity, particularly during periods of dynamic environmental changes.

During the Magdalenian, populations were emerging from refugia after the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and were under pressure to adapt to unfamiliar, everchanging landscapes as they expanded across Europe. Social networks during this period were vital, providing a safety net as populations negotiated the unknown. This research argues that for the inhabitants of El Mirón (Cantabria, Spain) and Saint-Germain-La-Rivière (France), personal ornaments were essential in enabling the negotiation of new relationships. These relationships had pertinent implications for the personal, social, and cultural identities of the inhabitants. Through employing a relational approach which integrates ethnographic analogies, theoretical frameworks, and experimental archaeology, the relations negotiated by these personal ornaments are unravelled. This enables an in-depth understanding into their role in identity negotiation, providing a glimpse at what these objects meant to the eye of the beholder.

The recent taxonomic classification of beech in Europe considers existence of one species (Fagus sylvatica L.) with two subspecies: F. sylvatica ssp. sylvatica and F. sylvatica ssp. orientalis. Four beech populations growing on the Greek part of the Rodopi Mountains were studied using morphological traits as well as DNA molecular markers (AFLPs and chloroplast DNA SSR). The aim of the study was to describe the variation patterns of beech in the Rodopi Mountains and to test the hypothesis of possible introgression between the beech subspecies’ sylvatica and orientalis in this area. Both morphological traits and gene markers revealed a possible influence of F. orientalis on the east side of Rodopi and at the low elevations, while characters resembling F. sylvatica were observed mainly on the western part of the mountains and in higher altitudes. There was a clinal increase of genetic diversity from the west to the east, reaching a level firstly reported for beech populations. These results can be explained either by the existence of a main refugial area for beech during the last glaciation or by the occurrence of a recent hybridization among the subspecies, which were spatially isolated during the last glaciation and came into reproductive contact during their postglacial remigration. These two scenarios are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

In the face of climate change, populations have two survival options-they can remain in situ and tolerate the new climatic conditions ("stay"), or they can move to track their climatic niches ("go"). For sessile and small-stature organisms like alpine plants, staying requires broad climatic tolerances, realized niche shifts due to changing biotic interactions, acclimation through plasticity, or rapid genetic adaptation. Going, in contrast, requires good dispersal and colonization capacities. Neither the magnitude of climate change experienced locally nor the capacities required for staying/going in response to climate change are constant across landscapes, and both aspects may be strongly affected by local microclimatic variation associated with topographic complexity. We combine ideas from population and community ecology to discuss the effects of topographic complexity in the landscape on the immediate "stay" or "go" opportunities of local populations and communities, and on the selective pressures that may have shaped the stay or go capacities of the species occupying contrasting landscapes. We demonstrate, using example landscapes of different topographical complexity, how species' thermal niches could be distributed across these landscapes, and how these, in turn, may affect many population and community ecological processes that are related to adaptation or dispersal. Focusing on treeless alpine or Arctic landscapes, where temperature is expected to be a strong determinant, our theorethical framework leads to the hypothesis that populations and communities of topographically Stay or go processes and landscape topography 4 complex (rough and patchy) landscapes should be both more resistant and more resilient to climate change than those of topographically simple (flat and homogeneous) landscapes. Our theorethical framework further points to how meta-community dynamics such as mass effects in topographical complex landscapes and extinction lags in simple landscapes, may mask and delay the long-term outcomes of these landscape differences under rapidly changing climates.

In this paper we present a multi‐proxy study of tropical limestone forest and its utilization by human groups during the major climatic and environmental upheavals of MIS‐2 (29‐11.7 kBP). Our data are drawn from new field research within the Tràng An World Heritage property on the edge of the Red River Delta, northern Vietnam. Key findings from this study include 1) that limestone forest formations were resilient to the large‐scale landscape transformation of the Sunda continent at the end of the last glaciation; 2) that prehistoric human groups were probably present in this habitat through‐out MIS‐2; and 3) that the forested, insular, karst of Tràng An provided foragers with a stable resource‐base in a wider changing landscape. These results have implications for our understanding of the prehistoric utilization of karst environments, and resonance for their conservation in the face of climate and environmental change today. Quaternary International (in press) http://dx.doi.org/10.1...

The biogeography of Iceland is controversial. Some authors believe that all Icelandic life originated after postglacial dispersal events (tabula rasa hypothesis), but others assume that some organisms survived the last glaciation in ice-free refugia. To extend existing knowledge of the freshwater biogeog-raphy of Iceland, we used a snail species, Radix balthica, as a model system. Based on a sample of 1,070 sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene from Iceland and from islands of the British Isles and continental Europe, a distinct Icelandic lineage was discovered. To explain the origin of the Icelandic lineage, two alternative scenarios were proposed: (i) postglacial colonization followed by rapid divergence under an elevated mutation rate and (ii) ancient preglacial colonization with survival during multiple glacial events in geothermal refugia and slow divergence under a 'standard' mutation rate. The results of neutrality tests and mismatch analyses and the st...

In this paper we present a multi-proxy study of tropical limestone forest and its utilization by human groups during the major climatic and environmental upheavals of MIS-2 (29-11.7 ka BP). Our data are drawn from new field research within the Tràng An World Heritage property, on the edge of the Red River Delta, northern Vietnam. Key findings from this study include 1) that limestone forest formations were resilient to the large-scale landscape transformation and inundation of the Sunda continent at the end of the last glaciation; 2) that prehistoric human groups were probably present in this habitat throughout MIS-2; and 3) that the forested, almost insular, karst of Tràng An provided foragers with a stable resource-base in a wider changing landscape. These results have implications for our understanding of the prehistoric utilization of karst environments and resonance for conservation efforts in the face of climate and environmental change today. many parts of the dry tropics (e.g.

A number of models, developed primarily in the 1980s, propose that Aboriginal Australian populations contracted to refugia e well-watered ranges and major riverine systems e in response to climatic instability, most notably around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (w23e18 ka). We evaluate these models using a comprehensive continent-wide dataset of archaeological radiocarbon ages and geospatial techniques. Calibrated median radiocarbon ages are allocated to overlapping time slices, and then K-means cluster analysis and cluster centroid and point dispersal pattern analysis are used to define Minimum Bounding Rectangles (MBR) representing human demographic patterns. Exploring data between 25 and 12 ka, we find a refugia-type hunter-gatherer response during the LGM (w23e18 ka) and again during the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR) (w14.5e12.5 ka), with expansion in the intervening period. Several refugia persist between 25 and 12 ka, including (by Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia areas) Gulf Plains/Einasleigh Uplands, Brigalow Belt South, Murray Darling Depression, and Tasmanian Central Highlands. Others appear sporadically through the same period. These include South Eastern Highlands,