Glacial Survival of Boreal Trees in Northern Scandinavia

摘要: It is commonly believed that trees were absent in Scandinavia during the last glaciation and first recolonized Scandinavian Peninsula with retreat of its ice sheet some 9000 years ago. Here, we show presence a rare mitochondrial DNA haplotype spruce appears unique to highest frequency west—an area sustain ice-free refugia most age. We further survival from this lake sediments pollen Trondelag central Norway dating back ~10,300 chloroplast pine adjacent Andoya refugium northwestern as early ~22,000 17,700 ago, respectively. Our findings imply conifer survived glaciation, challenging current views on spread response climate changes.