Summary

Identifying important areas related to historical evolutionary processes represents a major topic in global biodiversity protection studies. The alpine plant species are good candidates for such studies since they are exposed to a higher risk of population loss and regional extinction due to actual and future climate change trend. Their evolutionary history shaped by several processes, among which the rapid climatic oscillations from Pleistocene were the most influential, underlie the present-day genetic patterns within and among species.

The current project aims to expose these patterns and subsequently to bring important advances in the present knowledge on alpine bio/phylogeography and phylogeny, using as study model the plant species Eritrichium nanum, representative for the European Alpine System. EVOL-EAS intends to reconstruct the European phylogeography of Eritrichium nanum, with a special focus on the Carpathians, region that is still in the background of such studies. At the same time, it plans to produce important taxonomic developments for the so far unresolved and sometimes doubtful phylogeny of this genus, while highlighting the relationship between E. nanum subsp. nanum and the Carpathian endemic E. nanum subsp. jankae.

EVOL-EAS relies on the simultaneous employment of two molecular methods: the already classic cpDNA sequencing accompanied by the innovative, newly developed NGS-based method, ddRADseq fingerprinting. Comparative and integrative analysis of data emerged from both methods of study will contribute to disentangle the historical and ecological drivers which shaped the current phylogeographic patterns of Eritrichium nanum and will infer the phylogenetic relationships between selected species of the genus. Our results will offer valuable information for biodiversity protection purposes by providing concrete data concerning the intraspecific genetic biodiversity that will be integrated into conservation programmes.