The effect of Hengduan Mountains Region (HMR) uplift to environmental changes in the HMR and its eastern adjacent area: Tracing the evolutionary history of Allium section Sikkimensia (Amaryllidaceae)

Abstract Exploring the effects of orographic events and climatic shifts on geographic distribution of organism in the Hengduan Mountains Region (HMR) and its eastern adjacent area is crucial to the understanding of the environmental changes to organismal evolution. To gain further insight into these processes, we reconstruct evolutionary history of ten species in Allium section Sikkimensia , distributed across regions abovementioned. Using chloroplast and nuclear sequence variation of 79 populations of these ten Allium species with known morphological preferences, we elucidate the phylogenetic relationship, divergence time, ancestral area and genetic structures. Climatic variables analysis, Isolation by distance (IBD) and environment (IBE) and Species distribution modeling (SDM) were analyzed along different genetic clades. These analyses indicated that the initial split of Sikkimensia was triggered by climate changes following Qinghai-Tibet Plateau sensu lato (QTP sl ) uplift during the late Miocene. Subsequently, divergences within lineage (lineage A)/among lineages (lineage C and D) in Sikkimensia may be induced by the intense uplift of the HMR around 3–4 Ma and abrupt intensifying of the Asian monsoon regimes. Furthermore, Sikkimensia populations exhibited lopsided demographic history in the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), as was indicated by the expansion of their range in the QDM and contraction in the HMR. Our findings appear to suggest that the HMR uplift could have strengthened the orographic difference between the HMR and its eastern adjacent area and led to a colder climate in the HMR, while geological topography also played an important role for taxa to respond the climate change that had taken place in the HMR and its eastern adjacent area during the Pleistocene.