Genetic variation of Ardisia crenata in south China revealed by nuclear microsatellite

Abstract

Ardisia crenata Sims, one of the most widely distributed Ardisia in the world, is an important ornamental and medicinal plant species. Using seven polymorphic nuclear microsatellite loci, we studied the genetic variation of 20 natural populations of A. crenata across its distribution center in south China. Significant deviation from the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium in all populations and at all loci were detected, and the fixation index was high (FIS= 0.725), indicating that inbreeding may be dominant in the mixed mating system of this self‐compatible species. The average genetic diversity within populations was relatively low (HS= 0.321). There was significant genetic differentiation among populations (FST= 0.583), which may have resulted from a high level of inbreeding and a low level of gene flow. Ardisia crenata in south China can be roughly divided into an eastern group and a western group, consistent with the floristic division of the Sino‐Himalayan forest subkingdom and the Sino‐Japanese forest subkingdom. There may be separated glacial refugia in each region.

Inferring the invasion history of coral berry Ardisia crenata from China to the USA using molecular markers

“…Except for the trnF-trnL intergenic spacer region, the other regions were not polymorphic. Thus, we only used the trnF-trnL region to amplify DNA from either one or two individuals per population, including those sampled by Mu et al (2010). We used polymerase chain reaction in a 40-ll solution containing 10 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.4), 200 mM (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 , 6 mM MgC l2 , 0.8 mM dNTPs, 0.8 lM primer, 200 ng of genomic DNA, and 1 U Taq polymerase (TaKaRa) on Eppendorf Master Cycles.…”

“…We genotyped all individuals at seven microsatellite loci: Ac07, Ac26, Ac27, Ac29, Ac49, Ac53, and Ac63 using methods described by Hong et al (2008) and Mu et al (2010). We calculated the observed number of alleles (N A ), the number of effective alleles (N E ), observed heterozygosity (H O ), unbiased expected heterozygosity (UH E ), and the inbreeding coefficient (F IS ) per population using GENEALEX 6.2 (Peakall and Smouse 2006).…”

“…We combined the microsatellite results from our nine sampled populations with the 20 populations sampled and described by Mu et al (2010) to test whether native and invasive populations differed in their genetic signatures. We used FSTAT 2.9.3 (Goudet 2001) to calculate the number of private alleles at the population level and quantify statistically the difference in mean allelic richness (A R , adjusted by the smallest sample size, n = 13), observed heterozygosity (H O ), gene diversity (H s ), and inbreeding coefficient (F IS ).…”

“…Applying these two molecular markers to both invasive and native conspecifics can reveal elements of likely introduction history (Williams et al 2005). Mu et al (2010) examined the genetic variation of 20 natural populations of A. crenata across its distribution center in mainland of China using nuclear microsatellites. They determined from their sample that there is limited gene flow between populations and a high incidence of inbreeding, with strong population structure.…”

“…Here we add to this database by sampling native A. crenata individuals from other regions like Taiwan and Japan, and compare their genetic signatures to invasive individuals collected from the USA. We used the same microsatellite markers as did Mu et al (2010) and further complement the genetic signature description based on cpDNA for all populations. Combined with the results from Mu et al (2010), we aimed to: (1) compare the genetic diversity and population genetic structure between native and introduced wild populations of A. crenata, (2) identify the most likely origin(s) of the invasive populations, (3) test whether the invasive range resulted from single or multiple introductions, and fi-nally (4) reconstruct the putative introduction and colonization routes of A. crenata.…”