title: Dispersal analysis of threePeltigeraspecies based on landscape genetics data.
abstract: Lichens can either disperse sexually through fungal spores or asexually through vegetative propagules and fragmentation. Understanding how genetic variation in lichens is distributed across a landscape can be useful to infer dispersal and establishment events in space and time as well as the conditions needed for this establishment. Most studies have sampled lichens across large spatial distances on the order of hundreds of kilometers, while here we sequence the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) for 113 samples of threePeltigeraspecies sampling at a variety of small spatial scales. The maximum distance between sampled lichens was 3.7 km and minimum distance was approximately 20 cm. We find significant amounts of genetic diversity across all three species. ForP. praetextata, two out of the three most common ITS genotypes exhibit spatial autocorrelation supporting short-range dispersal. Using rarefaction we estimate that all ITS genotypes in our sampling area have been found forP. praetextataandP. evansiana, but notP. canina.Comparing our results with other ITS data in the literature provides evidence for global dispersal for at least one sequence followed by the evolution of endemic haplotypes with wide dispersal and rare haplotypes with more local dispersal.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3B2 ; Department of Biology, University of Toronto at Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road N., Mississauga, ON, Canada L5L 1C6.
authors.forename: Daniel N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Anstett
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UG UK.
authors.forename: Heath
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.affiliation: Cell & Systems Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G5.
authors.forename: Ellen W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Larsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1.
authors.forename: R Troy
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: McMullin
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3B2.
authors.forename: Marie-Josée
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Fortin
keywords: ITS; biogeography; joint-count test; lichen; rarefaction; symbiosis