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Genetic diversity of relictual and endangered plant Abies ziyuanensis (Pinaceae) revealed by AFLP and SSR markers

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Abstract

Abies ziyuanensis is a highly endangered fir species endemic to South China. Unlike other Abies species that are distributed in areas with cold climates, A. ziyuanensis is restricted to several isolated island-like localities at subtropical mountains. In this study, we used dominant amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and co-dominant simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers to infer the genetic structure of A. ziyuanensis. Seven populations consisting of 139 individuals were sampled across their whole distribution. A. ziyuanenesis has a relatively low level of genetic variation, with a mean genetic diversity per population (He) of 0.136 (AFLP) and 0.337 (SSR), which is lower than that of other reported endemic species based on the same kind of marker. We observed high population differentiation, with Gst = 0.482 (AFLP) and Fst = 0.250 (SSR), among the seven populations. AMOVA also detected significant differentiation among populations (Φst (AFLP) = 0.550 and Φst (SSR) = 0.289) and among regions (Φct (AFLP) = 0.139 and Φct (SSR) = 0.135) in both marker types. Both ongoing evolutionary forces (e.g., genetic drift resulting from small population size) and historical events (e.g., population contraction and fragmentation during and after the Quaternary glacial cycles) may have contributed to the genetic structure in A. ziyuanensis.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers, Dr. Zhiping Song at Fudan University and Mr. Rick Yan from Plano, Texas (TAMS Program) for valuable comments and corrections on the earlier versions of this manuscript. This work was supported by grants from the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (30260013) and Chinese National Key Project for Basic Research (973) (2002CB512801).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, Guangxi Normal Univertsity, Guilin, 541004, China

    Shaoqing Tang, Wenjuan Dai & Ying Zhang

  2. School of Environment and Resources, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, 541004, China

    Mingshun Li

  3. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Yupeng Geng, Li Wang & Yang Zhong

  4. Shanghai Center for Bioinformation Technology, Shanghai, 201203, China

    Li Wang & Yang Zhong

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  1. Shaoqing Tang
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Tang, S., Dai, W., Li, M. et al. Genetic diversity of relictual and endangered plant Abies ziyuanensis (Pinaceae) revealed by AFLP and SSR markers. Genetica 133, 21–30 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-007-9178-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-007-9178-x

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