Data from: Pleistocene survival on central Alpine nunataks: genetic evidence from the jumping bristletail Machilis pallida

Mechanisms of survival during the Pleistocene glaciation periods have been studied for more than a century. Until now, molecular studies that confirmed animal survival on Alpine nunataks, i.e., ice-free summits surrounded by glaciers, were restricted to peripheral areas. Here, we search for molecular signatures of inner-Alpine survival of the narrow-endemic and putatively parthenogenetic Alpine jumping bristletail Machilis pallida combining mitochondrial and AFLP data from its three known populations. The mitochondrial data indicate survival on both peripheral and central nunataks, the latter suggesting that refugia in the centre of the Alpine main ridge were more widespread than previously recognised. Incongruences between mitochondrial and AFLP patterns suggest a complex evolutionary history of the species and may be explained via parallel fixation of parthenogenesis of different origins during the Last Glacial Maximum. We suggest that the inferred parthenogenesis may have been essential for central-nunatak survival, but may pose a serious threat for M. pallida in consideration of the present climatic changes

mtDNA Alignment

This sequence file provides the final 840 bp Alignment of 144 individuals from three populations. Sequences were edited manually and aligned by Clustal W

AFLPdata and GenBank accession numbers

This Excel file provides AFLP genotype data and genbank accession numbers from individuals of a Alpine endemic jumping bristletail. The file shows individual numbers, the corresponding mtDNA haplotypes , and the AFLP genotypes (72 loci). Fragment analysis was done on an ABI 3130 sequencer (Applied Biosystems, USA), data were analysed with Peakscanner v1.0, and the binary matrix was created with tinyFLP