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Science 15 June 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5831, pp. 1606 - 1609
DOI: 10.1126/science.1139178
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Reports

Frequent Long-Distance Plant Colonization in the Changing Arctic

Inger Greve Alsos,1*{dagger} Pernille Bronken Eidesen,1 Dorothee Ehrich,1 Inger Skrede,1 Kristine Westergaard,1,2 Gro Hilde Jacobsen,1 Jon Y. Landvik,3 Pierre Taberlet,4 Christian Brochmann1

The ability of species to track their ecological niche after climate change is a major source of uncertainty in predicting their future distribution. By analyzing DNA fingerprinting (amplified fragment-length polymorphism) of nine plant species, we show that long-distance colonization of a remote arctic archipelago, Svalbard, has occurred repeatedly and from several source regions. Propagules are likely carried by wind and drifting sea ice. The genetic effect of restricted colonization was strongly correlated with the temperature requirements of the species, indicating that establishment limits distribution more than dispersal. Thus, it may be appropriate to assume unlimited dispersal when predicting long-term range shifts in the Arctic.

1 National Centre for Biosystematics, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Post Office Box 1172 Blindern, NO-0318 Oslo, Norway.
2 Tromsø University Museum, University of Tromsø, NO-9037 Tromsø, Norway.
3 Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Post Office Box 5003, NO-1432Ås, Norway.
4 Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, CNRS UMR 5553, Université Joseph Fourier, Post Office Box 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 09, France.

{dagger} Present address: The University Centre in Svalbard, Post Office Box 156, NO-9171 Svalbard, Norway.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ingera{at}unis.no

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