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Allozyme variation in Picea mariana from Newfoundland: Discussion

Informally Refereed

Abstract

In their recent paper describing the distribution of genetic variation in black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) on the island of Newfoundland, Yeh et el. (1986) concluded that a center of variability in west-central Newfoundland derived from ancestral populations that persisted on the island during the last (Wisconsin) glaciation. They attributed to Munns (1938) the "theory that part or all of such an area was ice-free during the Wisconsin glaciation." Munns's publication consists of tree distribution maps, long since superseded and not very accurate even when they were published; map 29, for example, wrongly shows black spruce widely distributed in West Virginia, Maryland, and southern New Jersey. This atlas of tree maps has no text apart from a brief introduction that does not mention glaciation, refugia, or Newfoundland, and could not have been the source of the theory referred to by Yeh et al. (1986). The other two references cited by these authors in their concluding section, Hultén (1937) and Halliday and Brown (1943), discussed glacial refugia in the context of the time, but Hult6n mentioned Newfoundland only peripherally, and Halliday and Brown's description of tree distribution in Canada excluded this island, which was not part of Canada in 1943.

Citation

Critchfield, William B. 1987. Allozyme variation in Picea mariana from Newfoundland: Discussion. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 17: p. 1471-1472
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/32792