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   Location:Home > Research > Research Progress
Neutral and adaptive genetic diversity of Castanopsis fargesii
Author: Chuck Cannon
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Update time: 2014-09-16
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Castanopsis fargesii (Fagaceae) is an evergreen broad-leaved tree species that dominates in forests of subtropical China. For plants in this region, many phylogeographic studies suggest a congruent pattern of historical fragmentation and only localized or no range expansions, yet few of them focus on divergent selection or local adaptation. Spatially varying environmental selection is expected to influence the distribution of genetic variation across populations in this species.

       Researchers from South China Botanical Garden (SCBG) and Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) expanded the population and genomic sampling effort for this species to include 32 EST-derived simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in 28 populations distributed across the majority of the natural range of C. fargesii in the evergreen broad-leaved forests of subtropical China.

       In the study, they explored EST-SSR diversity in 648 individuals of C. fargesii sampled from 28 natural populations distributed across strong environmental gradients of temperature and precipitation in central to southern China. After removing six loci that departed from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, they measured genetic variation, population structure and identified candidate loci putatively under selection by temperature and precipitation. A total of 370 alleles were revealed at 32 loci. They identified strong signatures of diversifying selection at four loci (CC2091, CC2448, CC3754 and CC5223).

      They discovered informative genetic markers related to the future evolution, adaptation and management of this major forest species in the subtropics of Asia. The sampling and analytical approach pursued in the study could provide general insights into the adaptive responses of plant species to future climatic change.

      The study entitled “Footprints of divergent selection in natural populations of Castanopsis fargesii (Fagaceae)” has been published online in Heredity.

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Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China
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