Genetic polymorphism in Chondrilla (Asteraceae) in the South of European Russia and the nature of Chondrilla juncea L.

We studied genetic diversity in 54 populations of nine species of the genus Chondrilla (C. acantholepis, C. ambigua, C. brevirostris, C. canescens, C. graminea, C. juncea, C. laticoronata, C. latifolia, and C. pauciflora) from SE European Russia and the neighboring territories of NW Kazakhstan. Analyses of the trnT–trnF region of plastid DNA and the internal transcribed spacer of ribosomal DNA (ITS1–5.8S–ITS2) using Statistical Parsimony, Maximum Likelihood and Neighbor Net methods revealed two major evolutionary lineages roughly corresponding to two subgenera traditionally recognized within Chondrilla in the region. Within the first evolutionary lineage (subgenus Brachyrhynchus) sexual diploid C. ambigua and its putatively hybrid apomictic derivatives C. brevirostris, C. laticoronata and C. pauciflora can be recognized. Their identity is confirmed by analyses of ISSR markers. The second evolutionary lineage (subgenus Chondrilla) is comprised comprises by C. juncea, C. acantholepis, C. ...