Recovering the demographical history of a brazilian cerrado tree species Caryocar brasiliense: coupling ecological niche modeling and coalescent analyses

Abstract

Here we studied the demographical history of Caryocar brasiliense (Caryocaraceae), by coupling ecological niche modeling (ENM) and statistical phylogeography. Analyses were based on the polymorphism of 147 individuals sampled in 12 populations for the chloroplast genome. C. brasiliense presented low genetic diversity but high population genetic differentiation, which is not correlated with geographical distances among localities. The most ancient lineage divergence from southern and western Cerrado boundaries occurred around ~3.3 ± 2.3 Myr BP. The simulation of demographic scenarios showed that the diversity pattern found so far for C. brasiliense is most likely due to a range retraction during the last glacial maximum (LGM, 21 kyr BP), leading to multiple refugia. The paleodistribution models and coalescent analyses strongly suggest that the current distribution of C. brasiliense is wider than during the dry periods of the Quaternary.