The phrase "alpine refugia" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts related to ecology, climate change, or geography, particularly when discussing areas that provide a safe habitat for species in mountainous regions.
Example: "As temperatures rise, many species are migrating to alpine refugia to escape the heat and find suitable living conditions."
Alternatives: "mountain refuges" or "high-altitude shelters".
The results of phylogenetic studies based on molecular markers suggest separate evolutionary origin of Polish populations of Norway spruce with southern populations descended from Alpine refugia while north-eastern populations are from Scandinavian refugia (Lewandowski and Burczyk 2002; Nowakowska 2009; Dering and Lewandowski 2009).
The first is the proximity from numerous peripheral alpine refugia along the border of the Alps [25] and the main glacial refugia in southern Europe [23], [24], offering higher rates of postglacial re-colonisation in the Alps than in the Scandes.
Notably, the Alps were never completely glaciated during the Pleistocene (reflecting their southern location and highly dissected topography) and were close to the main glacial refugia of the European flora in southern Europe and the peripheral alpine refugia around the margin of the Alps [23] [26].
Recent studies highlighted the role of Pleistocene climatic cycles in polyploid speciation and of southern Alpine refugia as reservoirs of diversity during glacial maxima.
These values do not correspond with the idea that all parthenogenetic D. triquetrella evolved from sexuals in alpine refugia during the last glacial period (110 000–20 000 years ago) as previously proposed by Seiler [ 17].
Even though a Pleistocene survival of land snails in alpine or other Northern refugia has not been traditionally considered [ 31], accumulating evidence suggests their importance for gastropod biodiversity [ 32- 35].
Generally speaking, it has been repeatedly put forward that alpine areas could provide pocket refugia for gastropods [ 27- 30].
A recent phylogeographic analysis of cpDNA variations in S. alpina indicated that this alpine shrub survived in multiple refugia during the Last Glacial Maximum and that earlier glaciations may have triggered deep intraspecific divergence (Zhang et al., 2012).
European refugia have probably been isolated by Alpine glaciers, the Alps, Carpathians, Dinaric Alps or repeated marine-flooding of the Crati-Sibari plaiNorthrth Calabria, [ 45]) during the Pleistocene period leading to allopatric divergences of European lineages.
We propose a phylogeographic scenario for T. muticellus in which an initial T. muticellus stock became isolated from the 'Alpine' clade and survived the various glaciation cycles in several refugia.
For example, these species clarify whether shifts in elevation are necessary to the survival of alpine populations, or if populations managed to survive in high elevation refugia [i.e. ice-free nunataks; [ 28]].
