Geographic barriers isolate endemic populations of hyperthermophilic archaea.

Whitaker, Rachel J; Grogan, Dennis W; Taylor, John W · Science · 2003

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Barriers to dispersal between populations allow them to diverge through local adaptation or random genetic drift. High-resolution multilocus sequence analysis revealed that, on a global scale, populations of hyperthermophilic microorganisms are isolated from one another by geographic barriers and have diverged over the course of their recent evolutionary history. The identification of a biogeographic pattern in the archaeon Sulfolobus challenges the current model of microbial biodiversity in which unrestricted dispersal constrains the development of global species richness.

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