The origin of Arctic terrestrial and freshwater tardigrades |
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Authors: | Philip J A Pugh Sandra J McInnes |
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Institution: | (1) British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK Fax: +44 1223 362616; e-mail: pjapu@pcmail.nerc-bas.ac.uk, GB |
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Abstract: | The tardigrade faunas of six Arctic sites (Canadian Axel Heiberg I., east and west coasts of Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard,
Novaya Zemlya and the Russian Taimyr Peninsula) form, with those of northern North America, a coherent “Nearctic-Arctic” biogeographic
cluster. This cluster is distinct from that of “Northern and Alpine Europe”. Few, if any, Arctic tardigrades survived Pleistocene
glaciation in situ amongst ice-free refugia. Similarly, few/none moved south ahead of the advancing ice-cap into the deglaciated
Palaearctic and Nearctic and subsequently returned north during the Holocene deglaciation. It is more probable that most Arctic
tardigrades are derived from wind-blown Nearctic propagules that colonized the region during the Holocene.
Received: 2 July 1997 / Accepted: 3 October 1997 |
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