Contrasting genetic patterns between two coexisting Eleutherococcus species in northern China

• Published in: Ecology and evolution Vol. 6; no. 10; pp. 3311 - 3324
• Main Authors: Wang, Sheng‐Hong, Bao, Lei, Wang, Tian‐Ming, Wang, Hong‐Fang, Ge, Jian‐Ping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.05.2016; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Admixtures; Biodiversity; Chloroplast DNA; Climate change; Demographics; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; East Asia; ecological niche modeling; Eleutherococcus; Eleutherococcus senticosus; Eleutherococcus sessiliflorus; Extreme values; Flora; Forests; Genetic diversity; Genetic structure; Glaciation; Glaciology; Haplotypes; Mountains; Natural populations; northern refugia; Original Research; Oscillations; phylogeography; Pleistocene; Pollen; Populations; Refugia; Species; Taiga; Temperate forests; Terrestrial environments; Tundra; China; China, People's Rep; ecological niche modeling; East Asia; Eleutherococcus sessiliflorus; Eleutherococcus senticosus; northern refugia; phylogeography
• ISSN: 2045-7758; 2045-7758
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2118

Climate oscillations are the key factors to understand the patterns in modern biodiversity. East Asia harbors the most diverse temperate flora, largely because an extensive terrestrial ice cap was absent during repeated Pleistocene glaciation–interglacial cycles. Comparing the demographic histories of species that are codistributed and are close relatives may provide insight into how the process of climate change influences species ranges. In this study, we compared the spatial genetic structure and demographic histories of two coexisting Eleutherococcus species, Eleutherococcus senticosus and E. sessiliflorus. Both species are distributed in northern China, regions that are generally considered to be sensitive to climatic fluctuations. These regions once hosted temperate forest, but this temperate forest was replaced by tundra and taiga forest during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), according to pollen records. Using three chloroplast DNA fragments, we assessed the genetic structure of 20 and 9 natural populations of E. senticosus and E. sessiliflorus, respectively. Extremely contrasting genetic patterns were found between the two species; E. sessiliflorus had little genetic variation, whereas E. senticosus had considerably higher levels of genetic variation (15 haplotypes). We speculated that a recent severe bottleneck may have resulted in the extremely low genetic diversity in E. sessiliflorus. In E. senticosus, populations in Northeast China (NEC) harbored all of the haplotypes found in this species and included private haplotypes. The populations in NEC had higher levels of genetic diversity than did those from North China (NC). Therefore, we suggest that both the NC and NEC regions can sustain LGM refugia and that lineage admixture from multiple refugia took place after the LGM elevated the local genetic diversity in NEC. In NEC, multiple genetic hot spots were found in the Changbai Mountains and the Xiaoxing'an Range, which implied that multiple locations in NEC may sustain LGM refugia, even in the Xiaoxing'an Range. We evaluated whether two coexisting Eleutherococcus species had similar demographic history based on chloroplast fragment sequencing. Our study found extremely contrasting genetic patterns between the two coexisting close relatives, with E. sessiliflorus found only one haplotype, whereas E. senticosus found considerably high genetic variation in both North China and Northeast China (total 15 haplotypes). We speculated that a recent severe bottleneck might have resulted in the extremely low genetic diversity in E. sessiliflorus; for E. senticosus, we inferred that both North China and Northeast China could sustain populations during last glacial maximum, and lineage admixture between multiple glacial refugia might elevate the genetic diversity in Northeast China.