Abstract
To describe the phylogeographic structures of Asparagus schoberioides Kunth (Asparagaceae) in Japan, we investigated its nucleotide sequence variations with respect to its geographic distribution pattern. Sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) 1 region in 29 samples of A. schoberioides revealed 20 polymorphic nucleotide sites. As a result, the 29 samples of A. schoberioides fell into 15 distinct haplotypes and phylogenetic analyses revealed these haplotypes fell into two major clades, Clade 1 and Clade 2. The haplotypes of Clade 1 were distributed chiefly along the Pacific Ocean side of Japan, while those of Clade 2 occurred mainly along the Japan Sea side. This result suggests that A. schoberioides has migrated via two routes in Japan.
Highlights
The genetic and geographic structures of natural plant populations are a consequence of ecological factors and historical events
Fifteen ITS1 haplotypes were obtained from A. schoberioides, and the sequence of each haplotype has been deposited in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank international DNA data bank (Table 1)
When we used the ITS1 sequence data set in phylogenetic analyses, we obtained 78 most parsimonious trees of the 28 steps with a consistency index (CI) of 0.71 and a retention index (RI) of 0.92
Summary
The genetic and geographic structures of natural plant populations are a consequence of ecological factors and historical events. Asparagus schoberioides Kunth is a perennial herb bearing small flowers with yellowish green perianth in a raceme-like inflorescence and reddish colored berries. This species ranged from Far East Russia, northern China, Korea, Sakhalin, Japan and Taiwan [6,7]. A natural hybrid between A. schoberioides and the garden asparagus has not been found to date, but the possibility of genetic introgression from crop to wild relatives suggests the escape of the garden asparagus from the crop fields may pose a substantial ecological risk for the environment and its biodiversity [2,11,12,13,14,15,16]
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