Population genetic structuring in a rare tropical plant: Idiospermum australiense (Diels) S.T. Blake

Idiospermum australiense (Diels) S.T. Blake is considered to be one of the few remaining species of an ancient assemblage to have survived the attrition of Australian tropical rain forest during historically drier periods. This monotypic species is currently restricted to two very wet lowland rain f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plant systematics and evolution 2010-06, Vol.286 (3-4), p.133-139
Main Authors: Jones, Lynne M, Gadek, Paul A, Harrington, Mark G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Dispersal
DNA
Forests
Genetic diversity
Genetic structure
Geography
Germination
Idiospermum
ISSR
Life Sciences
Lowland tropical
Original Article
Phenotypes
Plant Anatomy/Development
Plant Ecology
Plant Sciences
Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography
Pleistocene
Population
Population distributions
Population genetics
Population geography
Population structure
Rain
rain forests
Rainforests
Random amplified polymorphic DNA
RAPD
Refuge habitats
Refugia
Species
Tropical forests
Tropical plants
Tropical rain forests
World Heritage Areas
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Summary:Idiospermum australiense (Diels) S.T. Blake is considered to be one of the few remaining species of an ancient assemblage to have survived the attrition of Australian tropical rain forest during historically drier periods. This monotypic species is currently restricted to two very wet lowland rain forest locations in Australia's wet tropical World Heritage Area that are thought to have provided refuge for humid-adapted taxa during the last glacial maximum. Two dominant (RAPD and ISSR) molecular marker sets were employed to investigate whether the genetic structure of Idiospermum could be attributed to its restriction to these quite disjunct localities. The results reveal that neither its restriction to purported Pleistocene refugia nor the geographic distance between populations could fully explain the distribution of variation in the Idiospermum data set, with evidence to suggest that potentially deeper time events have played a role in population structuring and the distribution of diversity. Although there is sufficient evidence in the data to suggest that gene dispersal is quite limited in the species, further investigation is still needed to yield more informative detail on additional factors, such as breeding and germination strategies and their potential influence over population structuring and diversity levels within each population and refugium.
ISSN:0378-2697
1615-6110
2199-6881
DOI:10.1007/s00606-010-0293-2