Glacial relicts have been regionally more common in glacial than in recent times. A rigorous assessment of which species are indeed glacial relicts is extremely difficult because direct evidence is untraceable or equivocal for many species. We aimed to identify species of the Western Carpathian flora (vascular plants, bryophytes and terrestrial lichens) that display apparent biogeographical and ecological symptoms, suggesting a wider regional or supra-regional distribution during glacial times, or at least before the middle-Holocene climate optimum. We worked with the premise that exemplary relict species should tolerate continental and/or arctic climates, should have large distribution ranges with disjunctions, being regionally rare and ecologically conservative nowadays, should be associated with habitats that occurred during glacial times (tundra, steppe, peatland, open coniferous forest) and should display a restriction of ecological niches in the study region. The assessed species were primarily those with boreo-continental or artcic-alpine distribution. We demonstrated a conspicuous gradient of glacial-relict symptoms, with Carex vaginata, Betula nana, Trichophorum pumilum, Nephroma arcticum, Saxifraga hirculus and Cladonia stellaris topping the ranking. Based on the arbitrary ranking, 289 taxa can be considered high-probability relicts. For only a minority of them, there are any phylogeographical and/or palaeoecological data available from the study area. Biogeographical and ecological symptoms of 144 taxa suggest that they retreated rapidly after the Last Glacial Maximum whereas other species probably retreated later. The first principal component of biogeographical symptoms sorted species from circumpolar arctic-alpine species of acidic peatlands and wet tundra to strongly continental species of steppe, steppe-tundra and mineral-rich fens. This differentiation may mirror the altitudinal zonation of glacial vegetation in the Western Carpathians.

中文翻译：

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西喀尔巴阡山脉的冰川遗迹症状

冰川遗迹在冰川中的区域性比最近更常见。严格评估哪些物种确实是冰川遗迹是极其困难的，因为对于许多物种而言，直接证据无法追踪或模棱两可。我们的目标是确定表现出明显生物地理和生态症状的西喀尔巴阡植物群（维管植物、苔藓植物和陆生地衣）的物种，这表明在冰川时期，或至少在全新世中期气候最佳之前有更广泛的区域或超区域分布. 我们工作的前提是示范性遗存物种应该能够忍受大陆和/或北极气候，应该具有较大的分布范围且不连续，如今在区域内稀有且生态保守，应该与冰川时期发生的栖息地（苔原、草原、泥炭地、开阔的针叶林）有关，并且应该在研究区域显示出对生态位的限制。评估的物种主要是那些具有北纬大陆或北极-高山分布的物种。我们展示了明显的冰川残留症状梯度，其中苔草、桦树、小毛虫、北极星、虎耳草和白花枝条名列前茅。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 根据任意排序，289 个分类群可以被认为是高概率的遗迹。对于其中的一小部分，研究区有任何系统地理学和/或古生态学数据可用。144 个分类群的生物地理和生态症状表明，它们在末次盛冰期后迅速退缩，而其他物种可能较晚退缩。生物地理症状的第一个主要成分将物种从酸性泥炭地和湿苔原的极地北极-高山物种到草原、草原苔原和富含矿物质的沼泽的强烈大陆物种分类。这种差异可能反映了西喀尔巴阡山脉冰川植被的海拔分区。