Complete chloroplast genome of Albizia kalkora (Fabaceae) in Korea and its taxonomic position

Abstract

Albizia kalkora (Roxb.) Prain (Fabaceae) is a temperate and subtropical deciduous tree distributed in East and Southeast Asia and India. However, the taxonomic position of the Korean A. kalkora remains unclear. Here, we provide the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of the Korean A. kalkora to clarify its taxonomic position and phylogenetic relationship within the genus. The cp genome was assembled based on Illumina HiSeq reads and was 176,402 bp in length. The GC content of the species was 35.4%. The cp genome of A. kalkora revealed a typical quadripartite structure consisting of a pair of inverted repeats (39,716 bp) separated by the large single copy (91,862 bp) and small single copy (5,108 bp) regions. The phylogenetic trees constructed using the maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods based on 73 protein-coding genes revealed that A. kalkora is positioned within the Albizia clade, which is a sister to the Archidendron clade. Unexpectedly, the accession of the Korean A. kalkora was found to be a sister to Albizia julibrissin instead of an individual of the A. kalkora from China. Our complete cp genome data of A. kalkora are useful for identifying species by developing species-specific molecular markers, thereby providing a guideline for conservation.