Читать книгу Biogeography in the Sub-Arctic - Группа авторов - Страница 43

Most recent investigations of an exceptionally rich plant fossil record demonstrate that the NALB facilitated plant migration between North America and Europe until the late Miocene. This finding is in agreement with low molecular divergences found both for animal and plant lineages with a transatlantic distribution. Little genetic differentiation of these lineages strongly suggests that gene exchange via the NALB must have occurred long into the Neogene (Denk and Grimm 2010; Kornobis et al. 2011). The improved understanding of the history of the NALB is crucial for basic biogeographic assumptions. For example, Donoghue and Smith (2004) based on molecular divergence times between transatlantic sister lineages (erroneously) suggested that taxa with an inferred divergence time of less than 30 million years ago must have migrated from North America via the Bering Strait (and via East and Central Asia) to Europe. The quality of future biogeographic studies using modern plants and molecular differentiation patterns to infer historical biogeography will largely depend on revised fossil data in order to arrive at meaningful biogeographic scenarios.