Abstract
Genetic variation evolves during postglacial range expansion of a species and is important for adapting to varied environmental conditions. It is crucial for the future survival of a species. We investigate the nuclear DNA sequence variation to provide evidence of postglacial range expansion of Musa basjoo var. formosana, a wild banana species, and test for adaptive evolution of amplified fragment length polymorphic (AFLP) loci underlying local adaptation in association with environmental variables. Postglacial range expansion was suggested by phylogeographical analyses based on sequence variation of the second intron of copper zinc superoxide dismutase 2 gene. Two glacial refugia were inferred by the average FST parameter (mean FST of a population against the remaining populations). Using variation partitioning by redundancy analysis, we found a significant amount of explained AFLP variation attributed to environmental and spatially-structured environmental effects. By combining genome scan methods and multiple univariate logistic regression, four AFLP loci were found to be strongly associated with environmental variables, including temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, wet days, and surface coverage activity representing vegetation greenness. These environmental variables may have played various roles as ecological drivers for adaptive evolution of M. basjoo var. formosana during range expansion after the last glacial maximum.
Highlights
In the Quaternary, temperature oscillations are an important historical factor influencing the current distributions of a plant species[1]
2 of 46 samples collected from populations Shouka and Wufeng were heterozygotes and one single-base pair indel was found in the aligned sequences
We surveyed sequence variation in the second intron of Cu/Zn SOD2 and amplified fragment length polymorphic (AFLP) variation to investigate whether the postglacial range expansion occurred in M. basjoo var. formosana and adaptive evolution in association with the environmental gradients of contemporary populations in this species
Summary
In the Quaternary, temperature oscillations are an important historical factor influencing the current distributions of a plant species[1]. Investigating the relative roles of geography and environment that influence genetic variation is critical to understand how environmental factors may act as selective drivers and lead to adaptive genetic variation underlying local adaptation in natural populations of a species[11, 12]. Formosana is edible but has numerous large and hard seeds This species is an important germplasm for banana breeding due to its characteristics of cold tolerance and disease resistance. For conservation of this species, it is important to identify the genetic relationships of individuals among populations and to understand the potential for evolutionary adaptation because biodiversity is increasingly threatened by human-induced anthropogenic climate change[27]
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