To evaluate the genetic diversity of a mangrove species and clarify the genetic structure of its populations, we studied nucleotide polymorphism in two DNA regions of Bruguiera gymnorhiza collected from the southern islands of Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Micronesia, and India. The two DNA sequences were the chloroplast (cp) intergenic spacer between trnL and trnF genes (ca. 300 bp), and a part (ca. 550 bp) of the nuclear gene coding for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GapCp). Little polymorphism was found within each of the three geographical regions, Pacific Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. Throughout the vast regions east of the Malay peninsula including Indonesia, Thailand, Micronesia and the southern islands of Japan (Pacific Ocean), essentially only one haplotype (apart from variation in number of a T repeat) was present. A second haplotype was present on the western coast of Malay Peninsula and the eastern coast of India (Bay of Bengal). On the southwest of Malay Peninsula both of these haplotypes were present. Finally a third haplotype was found only on the western coast of India (Arabian Sea). When taken over all geographic populations, total nucleotide variation within the species was large (l = 0.006, average of the two genes). Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that this low genetic diversity within any local population and differentiation between the different oceans or regions are caused by very low gene flow between each of the different oceans coupled with frequent fluctuation of population sizes due to the change in sea level. The significance of these results is discussed from evolutionary point of the mangrove forests.

Metal-insulator-metal capacitor structures using thick hexagonal and cubic boron nitride (hBN and cBN) films as dielectrics are produced by plasma jet-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, and their electrical transport and capacitance characteristics are studied in a temperature range of 298 to 473 K. The resistivity of the cBN film is of the order of 107 Ω cm at 298 K, which is lower than that of the hBN film by two orders of magnitude, while it becomes the same order as the hBN film above ∼423 K. The dominant current transport mechanism at high fields (≥1 × 104 V cm−1) is described by the Frenkel-Poole emission and thermionic emission models for the hBN and cBN films, respectively. The capacitance of the hBN film remains stable for a change in alternating-current frequency and temperature, while that of the cBN film has variations of at most 18%. The dissipation factor as a measure of energy loss is satisfactorily low (≤5%) for both films. The origin of leakage current and capacitance variation is attributed to a high defect density in the film and a transition interlayer between the substrate and the film, respectively. This suggests that cBN films with higher crystallinity, stoichiometry, and phase purity are potentially applicable for dielectrics like hBN films.