Chloroplast DNA Diversity in Populations of P. sylvestris L. from Middle Siberia and the Romanian Carpathians

Marina Sheller,Sergey Kulakov,Nadezhda Kulakova,Tatyana Sukhikh,Aleksey Ibe,Alexandru Curtu,Elena Ciocîrlan,Pavel Mikhaylov

doi:10.3390/f12121757

Abstract

Scots pine is one of the dominant conifer species in forest ecosystems of the boreal zone in Eurasia. Knowledge of the genetic structure and the level of genetic variability of Scots pine populations is relevant for the development of measures aimed at conservation of species’ diversity. In this study, we used ten paternally inherited chloroplast microsatellite loci to investigate the genetic diversity of nineteen Scots pine populations from Middle Siberia and the Romanian Carpathians. The results of the study showed high genetic diversity (HCP = 0.91–1.00) in all of the investigated populations. The cpSSR analysis yielded a total of 158 haplotypes. The majority of the haplotypes (85%) were detected only once (unique haplotypes). Three common haplotypes were found between the Carpathian and the Siberian populations of Scots pine. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed that only 3% of the variation occurred among populations from Middle Siberia and 6% of the variation existed among populations from the Carpathian Mountains. Overall, we found a weak geographic population structure in Scots pine from Middle Siberia and the Romanian Carpathians. The present study on genetic diversity in the Siberian and the Carpathian populations of Scots pine may contribute to the sustainable management and conservation of Scots pine genetic resources in Middle Siberia and the Romanian Carpathians.

Highlights

Genetic diversity is the basis for biological stability; it allows species to evolve and to adapt to changing environmental conditions [1]
49 alleles were observed at ten chloroplast simple sequence repeats (cpSSRs) loci across all 190 individuals in the nineteen populations of Scots pine (Table 2)
The mean number of alleles and effective number of alleles were slightly lower in the Siberian populations (Na = 2.64; number of effective alleles (Ne) = 1.95) when compared with the Carpathian (Na = 2.73; Ne = 2.08) (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Genetic diversity is the basis for biological stability; it allows species to evolve and to adapt to changing environmental conditions [1]. Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is one of the keystone species in forest ecosystems of the boreal regions in Eurasia. It is of great ecological and economic importance and is adapted to a variety of environmental conditions [3,4]. Scots pine is a monoecious, wind-pollinated and predominantly outcrossing conifer [5,6,7]. It usually forms extensive pure forests or mixed stands with birch and other conifers [8]

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Conclusion