In situ glacial survival maintains high genetic diversity of Mussaenda kwangtungensis on continental islands in subtropical China

Generally, island populations are predicted to have less genetic variation than their mainland relatives. However, there has been exceptions, indicating that the relationships were impacted by several factors, e.g historical processes. In the present study, we chose a group of subtropical islands located in South China as the study system, which are quite younger and much closer to the mainland than most of the previous studied island systems, to test the hypothesis that in situ glacial survival contributes to high levels of genetic diversity in island populations. We conducted a comparison of genetic variation between 12 island and 11 nearby mainland populations of Mussaenda kwangtungensis using eleven nuclear microsatellite and three chloroplast markers, evaluated effects of the island area and distance to mainland on genetic diversity of island populations, and simulated the potential distribution over the past by ecological niche modelling, together with the genetic data to detect t...

通常而言，岛屿种群的遗传变异水平被认为低于其大陆近缘种群。但也存在例外情况，这表明二者的关联受多种因素影响，例如历史演化过程。本研究选取中国南方的一片亚热带群岛作为研究系统，相较于多数既往研究的岛屿系统，该群岛形成年代更晚、距大陆距离更近，以此检验"原位冰期存活可提升岛屿种群遗传多样性水平"这一假说。本研究针对广东玉叶金花（Mussaenda kwangtungensis）的12个岛屿种群与邻近的11个大陆种群，利用11个核微卫星（nuclear microsatellite）标记与3个叶绿体（chloroplast）标记开展遗传变异对比分析，评估岛屿面积与距大陆距离对岛屿种群遗传多样性的影响，并结合遗传数据通过生态位建模（ecological niche modelling）模拟其历史潜在分布，以探究……