| evolutionary history of the maltese wall lizard podarcis filfolensis: insights on the ‘expansion–contraction’ model of pleistocene biogeography. | the expansion–contraction (ec) model predicts demographic and range contraction of temperate species during pleistocene glaciations as a consequence of climate-related habitat changes, and provides a paradigm for explaining the high intraspecific diversity found in refugia in terms of long-term demographic stability. however, recent evidence has revealed a weak predictive power of this model for terrestrial species in insular and coastal settings. we investigated the pleistocene ec dynamics and ... | 2014 | 24716210 |