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Molecular evidence for glacial expansion and interglacial retreat during Quaternary climatic changes in a montane temperate pine (Pinus kwangtungensis Chun ex Tsiang) in southern China

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Abstract

It has been suggested that the eastern Asian temperate flora have responded to Quaternary climatic changes in a different way compared with temperate plants in Europe and Northern America. However, knowledge about their phylogeographic structure and evolutionary history is still limited. In this study we investigated mitochondrial DNA variation in 17 populations of Pinus kwangtungensis, a five-needled pine inhabiting in isolated mountains of southern China and northern Vietnam. A total of ten mitochondrial haplotypes (mitotypes) were characterized by the polymorphisms of two fragments (cox-1-2 and nad7 intron1), and total genetic diversity was high (h T = 0.847). The construction of phylogenetic relationships of the ten mitotypes detected three major, well-distinct clades, largely corresponding to four population groups identified by SAMOVA analysis. SAMOVA also indicated that most genetic variance should be attributed to among-group differentiation (F CT = 0.868), consistent with the substantial genetic structure found within P. kwangtungensis (G ST = 0.751). The genetic distances of P. kwangtungensis weakly but significantly correlated with geographical distances (R = 0.228, P = 0.03), revealing a pattern of isolation-by-distance. Demographic analysis did not detect any bottleneck events in the recent history of P. kwangtungensis. These results clearly suggested that there were three major refugia for this montane temperate conifer during warm stages (along with other minor refugia), and that the species would have tracked Quaternary climatic changes by expanding to nearby lowlands in the glacial periods, and by retreating to mountaintops (the refugia) during interglacial warmer stages, experiencing fragmentation and isolation among refugia.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Qing-Jun Yuan and Lin-Bin Zhang for help in molecular techniques. Many thanks go to Dr Philip Thomas of Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh for his insightful comments. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC 30460020) and the Cultivation Programs for Young Scientists of Jiangxi Province (2008DQ01500).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Subtropical Biodiversity, Jiangxi Agricultural University, 330045, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China

    Shuang Tian & Zhi-Yong Zhang

  2. Botanic Institute of Barcelona (CSIC-ICUB), Passeig del Migdia s/n, 08038, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi López-Pujol

  3. State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100093, Beijing, China

    Hong-Wei Wang & Song Ge

  4. Jingdezhen Comprehensive College, 333000, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China

    Shuang Tian

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  1. Shuang Tian
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Correspondence to Zhi-Yong Zhang.

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Tian, S., López-Pujol, J., Wang, HW. et al. Molecular evidence for glacial expansion and interglacial retreat during Quaternary climatic changes in a montane temperate pine (Pinus kwangtungensis Chun ex Tsiang) in southern China. Plant Syst Evol 284, 219–229 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-009-0246-9

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