TY  - GEN
TI  - The Laurel Forest: An Example for Biodiversity Hotspots threatened by Human Impact and Global Change
AV  - public
N2  - The Canary Islands' laurel forest is a montane evergreen forest formation of an outstanding floristic and biogeographic value. It is endemic to several islands of the Macaronesian biogeographic region, confined to the humid areas limited by the influence of the trade wind clouds. In recent times this relict forest vegetation, which once covered large proportions of the Canary Islands, suffered from a massive range reduction and fragmentation due to human exploitation.
 
This thesis evaluates the phylogeography and population structure of the laurel forest on the basis of two characteristic plant taxa representative for the whole vegetation complex: The widespread and dominant canopy-building tree species Laurus novocanariensis and the more constrictive Canary Island endemic Ixanthus viscosus. Analyses exhibit low levels of differentiation on within- as well as between-island level. Especially for Laurus the exchange between populations from different islands, even over longer distances, is obvious. On island level the forest fragmentation has low impact on population divergence up to now.
Furthermore, we localised the genetic hotspots of both model species within the laurel forest distribution range on Tenerife. A small-scale grid square sampling strategy combined with approaches from population and landscape genetics enabled the development of detailed maps showing the centres of genetic diversity and thus revealing the connection between forest fragmentation and diversity loss.
Additionally, we analysed the ecological preferences of the two species, recognising not abiotic factors, but rather past forest degradation as having the most important impact on the current distribution range of the endemic Ixanthus. 
Based on these findings we discuss the necessity and opportunities for conservation strategies of the Canary Islands' laurel forest in the future.

Y1  - 2015///
ID  - heidok17981
A1  - Betzin, Anja
UR  - https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/17981/
ER  -