Abstract
Evolutionary processes, speciation in woody bamboos are presently little understood. Here we used Dendrocalamus sinicus Chia & J.L. Sun as a model species to investigate dispersal or vicariance speciation in woody bamboos. Variation in three chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments and eight simple sequence repeat markers (SSR) among 232 individuals sampled from 18 populations across the known geographic range of D. sinicus was surveyed. D. sinicus populations exhibited a high level of genetic differentiation which divided them into two groups that are consistent with different culm types. Eleven haplotypes and two lineages (Straight-culm and Sinuous-culm lineages) were identified from phylogenetic analyses, and a strong phylogeographic structure across the distribution range was found. The demographic and spatial expansion times of the Straight-culm lineage were calculated as 11.3 Kya and 20.8 Kya, respectively. The populations of D. sinicus had experienced dispersal and long-term isolation, although this trace was diluted by contemporary gene flow revealed by SSR data. Our results provide an phylogeographic insight to better understand the speciation processes of woody bamboos.
Highlights
Evolutionary processes, speciation in woody bamboos are presently little understood
Dendrocalamus sinicus shows high total genetic diversity represented by HT = 0.497 and 0.743 (SSR), and the mean genetic diversity among populations is much higher than that within populations (Table 4)
The results of the NJ tree, Bayesian clustering and principal coordinate (PCO) analysis based on simple sequence repeat markers (SSR) genotyping indicated that the species has differentiated into two distinct groups: the TZ group and WQ group
Summary
We used Dendrocalamus sinicus Chia & J.L. Sun as a model species to investigate dispersal or vicariance speciation in woody bamboos. Based on the modern distribution pattern in the world, the species diversity of bamboos is generally regarded as the result of vicariance speciation[7,14], which was supported by evidence of molecular bamboo systematics[4,10,11]. D. sinicus is among the largest bamboos known in the world, with culms reaching over 30 m high and 30 cm in diameter, and has been acknowledged as the strongest bamboo known[15] This typical paleotropical woody bamboo occurs naturally only at elevations of 600–1,500 m in south and southwestern Yunnan Province in southwest China[16]. In intermediate areas between the main localities of these two variants, D. sinicus clumps have been observed to bear a mixture of both straight as well as sinuous culms[17]
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