Abstract
Understanding the genetic structure and evolutionary history of plants contributes to their conservation and utilization and helps to predict their response to environmental changes. The wildflower and traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicinal plant Gentiana lawrencei var. farreri is endemic to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). To explore its genetic structure and evolutionary history, the genetic diversity, divergence, and demographics were analyzed in individuals from 31 locations across the QTP using 1 chloroplast marker and 10 nuclear microsatellite loci. High genetic diversity was detected in G. lawrencei var. farreri, and most of the genetic variance was found within populations. Values of FST in G. lawrencei var. farreri from nuclear microsatellite and chloroplast data were 0.1757 and 0.739, respectively. The data indicated the presence of isolation by distance. The southeast edge of the QTP was the main refugium for G. lawrencei var. farreri, and one microrefugium was also detected in the plateau platform of the QTP. Both nuclear microsatellite and chloroplast data indicated that the populations were divided into two geographically structured groups, a southeast group and a northwest group. The current genetic pattern was mainly formed through recolonization from the two independent refugia. Significant melt was detected at the adjacent area of the two geographically structured groups. Approximate Bayesian computation showed that the northwest group had diverged from the southeast group, which then underwent population expansion. Our results suggest that the two-refugia pattern had a significant impact on the genetic structure and evolutionary history of G. lawrencei var. farreri.
Highlights
As the highest and largest plateau in the world, the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) has experienced drastic environmental and climate changes during the past several million years (Zhang et al, 2000; Zheng et al, 2002)
We focused on Gentiana lawrencei var. farreri T
Exploring the intraspecies genetic diversification and evolutionary history of the common species can contribute to its utilization and will be helpful to understand the divergence and speciation of the section as well. Using both chloroplast DNA and nuclear microsatellites, we investigated the population genetics structure and evolutionary history of G. lawrencei var. farreri from the point of matrilineal inheritance as well as nuclear inheritance
Summary
As the highest and largest plateau in the world, the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) has experienced drastic environmental and climate changes during the past several million years (Zhang et al, 2000; Zheng et al, 2002). Additional examples have been cited in a number of recent reviews (Qiu et al, 2011; Liu et al, 2014; Wen et al, 2014; Favre et al, 2015; Sun et al, 2017; Xing and Ree, 2017; Yu et al, 2017). These studies indicated that evolutionary patterns varied among different taxa, and no common evolutionary models have emerged.
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