[PCA] NEWS: Islands in the sky: How isolated are mountain top plant populations?
Olivia Kwong
plant at plantconservation.org
Mon Jan 24 08:01:42 CST 2011
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/ajob-iit012111.php
Islands in the sky: How isolated are mountain top plant populations?
Pollinators interact with their landscapes to affect the genetic structure
of 3 Penstemon species in the Great Basin
Do mountain tops act as sky islands for species that live at high
elevations? Are plant populations on these mountain tops isolated from one
another because the valleys between them act as barriers, or can
pollinators act as bridges allowing genes to flow among distant
populations?
Dr. Andrea Kramer and colleagues from the Chicago Botanic Garden and the
University of Illinois at Chicago were interested in pursuing these
questions, particularly for a genus of plants, Penstemon (Plantaginaceae),
endemic to the Great Basin region of the Western United States. They
published their findings in the January issue of the American Journal of
Botany (http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/98/1/109).
See the link above for the full public release text.
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