Biotic interactions are expected to influence species' responses to global changes, but they are rarely considered across broad spatial extents. Abiotic factors are thought to operate at larger spatial scales, while biotic factors, such as species interactions, are considered more important at local scales within communities, in part because of the knowledge gap on species interactions at large spatial scales (i.e., the Eltoni...

Aim The Expansion‐Contraction model has been used to explain the responses of species to climatic changes. During periods of unfavourable climatic conditions, species retreat to refugia from where they may later expand. This paper focuses on the palaeoecology of red deer over the past 54 ka across Europe and the Urals, to reveal patterns of change in their range and explore the role of environmental conditions in determining t...

Background Reduction of genetic diversity can lead to reduced fitness of species, such as the loss of adaptability to changing environments. The native Eurasian beaver ( Castor fiber ) was hunted to extinction from Finland and many other countries in Europe in the nineteenth century. In Finland, the species was re-introduced in the 1930s with only a few individuals from Norway. Re-introductions were performed also in other cou...

Aim Climatic changes during the Late Pleistocene had major impacts on populations of plant and animal species. Brown bears and other large mammals are likely to have experienced analogous ecological pressures and phylogeographical processes. Here, we address several unresolved issues regarding the Late Pleistocene demography of brown bears: (1) the putative locations of refugia; (2) the direction of migrations across Eurasia a...

Aim Using sequences of complete mitochondrial genomes, our aims were: (1) to investigate the matrilineal phylogeographical structure, migration patterns and lineage coalescence times in a large, continuous population of brown bears ( Ursus arctos ); and (2) to develop a novel spatial genetic method to identify migration corridors and barriers. Location North‐western Eurasia: from eastern European Russia to the Baltic Sea. Meth...

The brown bear has proved a useful model for studying Late Quaternary mammalian phylogeography. However, information is lacking from northern continental Eurasia, which constitutes a large part of the species’ current distribution. We analysed mitochondrial DNA sequences (totalling 1943 bp) from 205 bears from northeast Europe and Russia in order to characterize the maternal phylogeography of bears in this region. We also esti...

The tribe Lythriini is a small group of diurnally active geometrid moths consisting of a single Palaearctic genus Lythria with five species. The systematic placement of Lythriini has remained controversial: though traditionally it has been placed into the subfamily Larentiinae, a number of morphological characters link this tribe with the subfamily Sterrhinae. A molecular phylogenetic study was conducted to verify the systemat...

We estimated the phylogenetic relationships of brown bear maternal haplotypes from countries of northeastern Europe (Estonia, Finland and European Russia), using sequences of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region of 231 bears. Twenty‐five mtDNA haplotypes were identified. The brown bear population in northeastern Europe can be divided into three haplogroups: one with bears from all three countries, one with bears from Finla...