Geographic Barriers Isolate Endemic Populations of Hyperthermophilic Archaea

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 301; no. 5635; pp. 976 - 978
• Main Authors: Whitaker, Rachel J., Grogan, Dennis W., Taylor, John W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 15.08.2003; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Analysis of Variance; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Archaea; Bacteriology; Biodiversity; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Evolution; Climate; Ecosystem; Evolution; Evolutionary genetics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Genes, Archaeal; Genes, rRNA; Genetic aspects; Genetic Drift; Genetic loci; Genetic Variation; Genetics; Genetics, Population; Genotype; Geographic Isolation; Geographic regions; Geography; Geologic Sediments - microbiology; Geysers; Hot springs; Hot Temperature; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; hyperthermophilic archaea; Individualized Instruction; Maximum Likelihood Statistics; Microbial ecology; Microbiology; Microorganisms; Miscellaneous; Molecular Sequence Data; Neurons; Phylogeny; Population; Population genetics; Population geography; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Species; Sulfolobus; Sulfolobus - genetics; Sulfolobus - isolation & purification; Sulfolobus - physiology; Temperature; Water Microbiology; Geographic barrier; Archaeobacteria; Hyperthermophily; Bacteria; Environmental factor; Population structure; Biodiversity; Dispersion; Adaptation
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1086909

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.