Glacial relict

A photo of a flowering shrub - the photo centers on a single white flower at the end of a branch with red leaves (as the photo was taken in the autumn).
The Franklin tree is an example of a glacial relict species from the Southeastern USA. It went extinct in the wild in the early 19th century due to a changing climate, inability to spread outside of its limited range, and limited environmental tolerance. The species survives today as a cultivated garden plant.

A glacial relict is a population of a species that was common in the Northern Hemisphere prior to the onset of glaciation in the late Tertiary that was forced by climate change to retreat into refugia when continental ice sheets advanced.[1] They are typically cold-adapted species with a distribution restricted to regions and microhabitats that allow them to survive despite climatic changes.[1][2]

  1. ^ a b Dítě, Daniel; Hájek, Michal; Svitková, Ivana; Košuthová, Alica; Šoltés, Rudolf; Kliment, Ján (September 2018). "Glacial-relict symptoms in the Western Carpathian flora". Folia Geobotanica. 53 (3): 277–300. doi:10.1007/s12224-018-9321-8.
  2. ^ Jiménez-Alfaro, Borja; García-Calvo, Laura; García, Pedro; Acebes, José Luis (2016). "Anticipating extinctions of glacial relict populations in mountain refugia". Biological Conservation. 201: 243–251. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2016.07.015.