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Comparative chloroplast DNA phylogeography of two tropical pioneer trees, Macaranga gigantea and Macaranga pearsonii (Euphorbiaceae)

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An Erratum to this article was published on 30 July 2011

Abstract

Macaranga (Euphorbiaceae) has received much ecological and evolutionary research attention as a genus that includes some of the most conspicuous pioneer trees of Southeast Asian tropical rainforests and because of its manifold associations with ants, including about 30 species that are obligate ant-plants (myrmecophytes). We used sequence data from three chloroplast DNA loci (ccmp5, ccmp6, atpB-rbcL) to assess phylogeographical patterns in species of Macaranga, section Pruinosae, sampled from various regions of Borneo and the Malay Peninsula. Forty-nine chloroplast DNA haplotypes (HT) were identified among 768 specimens from five species, Macaranga gigantea (N = 329; 23 HT), Macaranga pearsonii (N = 347; 21 HT), Macaranga puberula (N = 24; 4 HT), Macaranga hosei (N = 48; 6 HT), and Macaranga pruinosa (N = 20; 5 HT). Forty-one haplotypes were species-specific, whereas eight haplotypes were shared by two, three, or four species and occupied internal positions in a parsimony network. Population genetic parameters based on haplotype frequencies proved to be in a similar range in the non-myrmecophytic M. gigantea and in the ant-associated M. pearsonii, which have overlapping distributions in northern and eastern Borneo. A comparison of GST and NST values revealed a strong phylogeographic structure in both species, whereas colonization pathways suggested by the network topology were different. Both species exhibited similar levels of haplotypic diversity and moderate to high levels of population differentiation. There were no obvious indications for an influence of the symbiotic ant partners on the population structure of their host plants.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for financial support within priority program 1127 (Biological Radiations, grants We 1830/4, Fi 606/5, and Bl 462/2). Permission to conduct research in Malaysia was kindly granted by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister’s Office, Kuala Lumpur, and EPU in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, as well as by the Danum Valley Management Committee and the Forest Department, Sarawak. Permit to work in Brunei was obtained by the Universiti Brunei Darussalam and the Brunei Museum. We thank our counterparts and colleagues in Malaysia and Brunei for their cooperation and support, especially Dr. Rosli bin Hashim, Dr. Kamariah Abu Salim, and members of Sabah Parks, namely Dr. Jamili Nais and Dr. Maklarin bin Lakim. Logistic support and help in many other ways by Prof. Dr. K. Eduard Linsenmair is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Prof. Dr. Ulrich Maschwitz for the kind supply of plant material. Reviewers’ comments on earlier versions of this manuscript are acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Systematics and Morphology of Plants, University of Kassel, 34132, Kassel, Germany

    Daniela Guicking & Kurt Weising

  2. Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg, 97074, Würzburg, Germany

    Brigitte Fiala

  3. Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Research (IPK), 06466, Gatersleben, Germany

    Frank R. Blattner

  4. Key Laboratory in Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan, China

    Ferry Slik

  5. Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ITBC), University Malaysia Sabah, 88999, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

    Maryati Mohamed

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  1. Daniela Guicking
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Correspondence to Daniela Guicking.

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Communicated by Y. Tsumura

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11295-011-0415-1

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Table S1

Geographic distribution of cpDNA haplotypes in five species of Macaranga section Pruinosae. *M. pearsonii haplotype. (DOC 377 kb)

Table S2

Definition of cpDNA haplotypes for Macaranga section Pruinosae. Polymorphic sites and their first position in base pairs (with reference to GenBank accessions EF565903, EF565927, and EF565917) are indicated. (DOC 106 kb)

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Guicking, D., Fiala, B., Blattner, F.R. et al. Comparative chloroplast DNA phylogeography of two tropical pioneer trees, Macaranga gigantea and Macaranga pearsonii (Euphorbiaceae). Tree Genetics & Genomes 7, 573–585 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-010-0357-z

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