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Genetic characterization and barcoding of taxa in the genus Wolffia Horkel ex Schleid. (Lemnaceae) as revealed by two plastidic markers and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP)

Planta volume 237, pages 1–13 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

The genus Wolffia of the duckweed family (Lemnaceae) contains the smallest flowering plants. Presently, 11 species are recognized and categorized mainly on the basis of morphology. Because of extreme reduction of structure of all species, molecular methods are especially required for barcoding and identification of species and clones of this genus. We applied AFLP combined with Bayesian analysis of population structure to 66 clones covering all 11 species. Nine clusters were identified: (1) W. angusta and W. microscopica (only one clone), (2) W. arrhiza, (3) W. cylindracea (except one clone that might be a transition form), (4) W. australiana, (5) W. globosa, (6) W. globosa, W. neglecta, and W. borealis, (7) W. brasiliensis, and W. columbiana, (8) W. columbiana, (9) W. elongata. Furthermore, we investigated the sequences of plastidic regions rps16 (54 clones) and rpl16 (55 clones), and identified the following species: W. angusta, W. australiana, W. brasiliensis, W. cylindracea, W. elongata, W. microscopica, and W. neglecta. Wolffia globosa has been separated into two groups by both methods. One group which consists only of clones from North America and East Asia was labelled here “typical W. globosa”. The other group of W. globosa, termed operationally “W. neglecta”, contains also clones of W. neglecta and shows high similarity to W. borealis. None of the methods recognized W. borealis as a distinct species. Although each clone could be characterized individually by AFLP and plastidic sequences, and most species could be bar-coded, the presently available data are not sufficient to identify all taxa of Wolffia.

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Abbreviations

AFLP:

Amplified fragment length polymorphism

BAPS:

Bayesian analysis of population structure

MP:

Maximum parsimony

NJ:

Neighbour-joining

UPGMA:

Un-weighted pair group method using arithmetic mean

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Acknowledgments

We thank Mr. Walter Laemmler, Landolt Lemnacae Collection Zurich for his support and the German Research Foundation, Bonn, Germany for supporting this project (AP 54/10-1).

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Institute of Plant Physiology, University of Jena, Dornburger Str. 159, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Manuela Bog, Philipp Schneider & Klaus-J. Appenroth

  2. Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Jena, Jena, Germany

    Frank Hellwig

  3. Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Jena, Jena, Germany

    Svea Sachse

  4. Bioengineering Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Elena Z. Kochieva & Elena Martyrosian

  5. Department of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Elias Landolt

Authors
  1. Manuela Bog
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  2. Philipp Schneider
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  3. Frank Hellwig
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  4. Svea Sachse
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  5. Elena Z. Kochieva
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  6. Elena Martyrosian
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  7. Elias Landolt
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  8. Klaus-J. Appenroth
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Correspondence to Klaus-J. Appenroth.

Electronic supplementary material

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425_2012_1777_MOESM1_ESM.xlsx

Supplementary material 1. Results of the amplified fragment length polymorphism of all clones of the genus Wolffia. Clone number, species names, PCR primer combinations, and size of the evaluated fragments (bp) are given (XLSX 60 kb)

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Bog, M., Schneider, P., Hellwig, F. et al. Genetic characterization and barcoding of taxa in the genus Wolffia Horkel ex Schleid. (Lemnaceae) as revealed by two plastidic markers and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Planta 237, 1–13 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-012-1777-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-012-1777-9

Keywords

  • Amplified fragment length polymorphism
  • BAPS
  • Duckweed
  • Lemnaceae
  • Barcoding
  • Wolffia