Does the genetic diversity among pubescent white oaks in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia islands support the current
- PDF / 2,114,005 Bytes
- 17 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 37 Downloads / 249 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Does the genetic diversity among pubescent white oaks in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia islands support the current taxonomic classification? Romeo Di Pietro1 · Antonio Luca Conte2 · Piera Di Marzio2 · Paola Fortini2 · Emmanuele Farris3 · Lorenzo Gianguzzi4 · Markus Müller5 · Leonardo Rosati6 · Giovanni Spampinato7 · Oliver Gailing5 Received: 7 March 2020 / Revised: 29 October 2020 / Accepted: 4 November 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Molecular diversity analysis of deciduous pubescent oaks was conducted for populations from Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia. The aims of this study were twofold. First, to provide data on the genetic diversity of pubescent oaks from an understudied area which currently exhibits one of the highest concentrations of pubescent oak species in Europe. Second, to verify if these groups of oaks are genetically distinct and if their identification is in accordance with the current taxonomic classification. Molecular analyses of leaf material of 480 trees from seventeen populations belonging to putatively different pubescent oak species (Quercus amplifolia, Q. congesta, Q. dalechampii, Q. ichnusae, Q. leptobalanos, Q. virgiliana) were performed. Twelve gene-based Expressed Sequence Tag-Simple Sequence Repeat markers were selected, and genetic diversity and differentiation were calculated. The results showed relatively high values of allelic richness, heterozygosity and number of private alleles for the populations investigated. A weak but positive correlation between geographical and genetic distance was detected. Genetic assignment (STRUCTURE) and principle coordinate analyses exhibited a weak separation into two genetic groups which, however, did not correspond to the taxonomic, chorological and ecological features of the populations investigated. Sardinian populations formed one group which was separated from the Calabrian and Sicilian populations. In light of the results obtained, the taxonomic classification for the pubescent white oaks currently reported in the major Italian floras and checklists for the study area was not confirmed by molecular analyses. Keywords Biogeography · Bayesian analysis · Genetic variation · Nuclear microsatellites · EST-SSRs · Pubescent oaks · Taxonomy
Introduction The deciduous oak woods represent the most abundant forest vegetation type in southern Europe (Mucina et al. 2016). On the Italian Peninsula they are dominant throughout the whole Apennine range with an increase in the sclerophyllic evergreen oak component (Quercus ilex, Q. suber and
Communicated by Christian Ammer. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-020-01334-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Romeo Di Pietro [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Q. coccifera/Q. calliprinos) moving southwards (Blasi and Di Pietro 1998; Blasi et al. 2004; Di Pietro et al. 2010). However, even at the
Data Loading...
