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Haplotype richness in refugial areas: phylogeographical structure of Saxifraga callosa

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Abstract

This paper illustrates the phylogeographical structure of Saxifraga callosa in order to describe its genetic richness in refugial areas and to reconstruct its glacial history. S. callosa is a species spread throughout south-east France and Italy with a high distribution in the Maritime Alps. Four chloroplast microsatellite and AFLP markers were analyzed in populations of S. callosa. The size variants of all tested loci amount to 11 different haplotypes. Intrapopulational haplotype variation was found in two of the populations analyzed: on the Mt. Toraggio in the Maritime Alps, and in the Apuan Alps. On the other hand, no intrapopulational variation was found in 25 populations, most of which were sampled from isolated areas. Analysis of the haplotype distribution showed that population subdivision across all populations was high (G ST = 0.899). Moreover, its genetic structure was studied using AMOVA and STRUCTURE analysis. The study legitimated inferred conclusions about the phylogeographical structure of the species and identified centers of diversity. Considerations concerning genetic structure and divergence among three major clades (Maritime Alps, Apuan Alps and Apennines), the patchy distribution of haplotypes, and the high number of private haplotypes support the proposal that S. callosa survived in some refugia within the Italian Peninsula refugium, and that mainly northern populations of refugia were involved in postglacial recolonization.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Italian Ministry of Environment and Environmental Protection, within the research project ‘‘Research and development in biotechnology applied to the protection of the environment, in collaboration within the People’s Republic of China;’’ by the FIRB0-RNBE01SF project, MIUR, Italy; and by the INGENIO project, Lombardy, Italy. Moreover, we wish to thank Roberto Brontini and Fabrizio Celia for technical assistance during the molecular analysis, and Nicodemo Passalacqua, Leonardo Gubellini, Fabio Conti and Sandro Ballelli for their valuable help in collecting plant samples. We also wish to thank MACROGEN for the molecular analysis and Penelope Barrington for revising the paper.

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Grassi, F., Minuto, L., Casazza, G. et al. Haplotype richness in refugial areas: phylogeographical structure of Saxifraga callosa . J Plant Res 122, 377–387 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-009-0230-z

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