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Research article2009Peer reviewedOpen access

Estimating the dispersal capacity of the rare lichen Cliostomum corrugatum

Lattman, Hakan; Lindblom, Louise; Mattsson, Jan-Eric; Milberg, Per; Skage, Morten; Ekman, Stefan

Abstract

The objective of this study was to estimate the dispersal rate in an organism assumed to be confined to tree stands with unbroken continuity. We used the lichen-forming ascomycete Cliostomum corrugatum, which is largely confined to old oak stands. Five populations, with pairwise distances ranging from 6.5 to 83 km, were sampled in Ostergotland, south-eastern Sweden. DNA sequence data from an intron in the small subunit nuclear ribosomal RNA gene was obtained from 85 samples. Nearly all molecular variance (99.6%) was found within populations and there were no signs of isolation-by-distance. The absolute number of immigrants per population per generation (estimated to 30 years), inferred by Bayesian MCMC, was found to be between 1 and 5. Altogether, evidence suggests abundant gene flow in the history of our sample. A simulation procedure demonstrated that we cannot know whether effective dispersal is ongoing or if it ceased at the time when oaks started to decrease dramatically around 400 years BP. However, a scenario where effective dispersal ceased already at the time when the postglacial reinvasion of oak had reached the region around 6000 years BP is unlikely. Vegetation history suggests that the habitat of C. corrugatum was patchily distributed in the landscape since the early Holocene. Combined with the high dispersal rate estimate, this suggests that the species has been successful at frequently crossing distances of at least several kilometres and possibly that it has primarily been limited by the availability of habitat rather than by dispersal. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Dispersal; Establishment; Ecological continuity; Old-growth forests; Quercus; Ascomycete

Published in

Biological Conservation
2009, volume: 142, number: 8, pages: 1870-1878

SLU Authors

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences and Nature Conservation

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2009.03.026

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/25818