Juniperus excelsa s. str. in Crimea – differentiation and history inferred from genetic and morphological markers

Autorzy

• Małgorzata Mazur Kazimierz Wielki University, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Ossolińskich 12, 85-093 Bydgoszcz, Poland
• Katarzyna A. Jadwiszczak University of Bialystok, Faculty of Biology, Ciołkowskiego 1J, 15-245 Białystok, Poland
• Agnieszka Bona University of Bialystok, Faculty of Biology, Ciołkowskiego 1J, 15-245 Białystok, Poland
• Yuliya Krasylenko Palacký University Olomouc, Faculty of Science, Centre of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research, Department of Cell
  Biology, Šlechtitelů, 27, 78371 Olomouc, Czech Republic;
  National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Institute of Food Biotechnology and Genomics, Department of Cell Biology and Biotechnology, Osipovskogo 2a, 04 123 Kyiv, Ukraine
• Oleg Kukushkin Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, 199034, Universitetskaya emb. 1, Russian Federation
• Katarzyna Katarzyna Kazimierz Wielki University, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Ossolińskich 12, 85-093 Bydgoszcz, Poland, phone: +48 52 3419015, e-mail: marc@ukw.edu.pl

Abstract

Juniperus excelsa s. str. (Greek juniper) in Crimea is a relic species on the limits of its range, and represents the Mediterranean flora in the Sub-Mediterranean part of the peninsula. Its origin and history in this area remains unresolved. We aimed to analyze phylogeny and potential demographic expansion of the juniper in the Crimea as well as to study its morphological differentiation. We analyzed plant material from 59 trees inhabiting eight populations. Genetic variation assessments were based on the four non-coding chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments and the nuclear internal transcribed spacer region ITS1-5,8S-ITS2 (ITS). To examine the morphological differentiation, eight measured/counted traits of cones, seeds, and shoots were chosen and eight ratios were calculated. Morphological parameters were compared using ANOVA, Student’s t test, discrimination analysis and Kruskal-Wallis and U Mann-Whitney tests. Two cpDNA fragments were polymorphic and, in total, 10 cpDNA haplotypes were found. Haplotype diversity (H_d) ranged from 0.0 to 0.9. Based on both cpDNA and ITS sequences variation, phylogenetic analyses revealed a close relationship of the Crimean junipers to the individuals from other parts of the species range. In general, our molecular results confirmed the low level of genetic differentiation of J. excelsa individuals inhabiting different parts of the species range, likely resulting from a common ancestry. Only slight morphological differences were found between populations with different geographic location or habitat. The analyzes showed the distinctness of the populations from the southern part of the coast. Some unique morphological and molecular features of southern coastal populations imply that they are remnants of Late Pleistocene abundant forests. We suggest that the recent fragmentation of the Juniperus populations in the Crimean Peninsula could have arisen during the Atlantic period of the Holocene.

Keywords

• cpDNA
• Crimean Sub-Mediterranean
• isolated populations
• ITS
• biometry
• juniper