Phylogeography of Sophora moorcroftiana Supports Wu's Hypothesis on the Origin of Tibetan Alpine Flora

Wu hypothesized that the Tibetan flora originated mostly from the paleotropical Tertiary flora in the Hengduan Mountains by adapting to the cold and arid environments associated with the strong uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). Here, we combine the phylogeographic history of Sophora moorcro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of heredity 2017-06, Vol.108 (4), p.405-414
Main Authors: Cheng, Shanmei, Qiong, La, Lu, Fan, Yonezawa, Takahiro, Yin, Ganqiang, Song, Zhiping, Wang, Yuguo, Yang, Ji, Zhang, Wenju
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate
DNA, Chloroplast - genetics
DNA, Plant - genetics
DNA, Ribosomal Spacer - genetics
Genetics, Population
Haplotypes
Phylogeny
Phylogeography
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Sophora - genetics
Tibet
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Wu hypothesized that the Tibetan flora originated mostly from the paleotropical Tertiary flora in the Hengduan Mountains by adapting to the cold and arid environments associated with the strong uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). Here, we combine the phylogeographic history of Sophora moorcroftiana with that of Sophora davidii to explore the speciation of S. moorcroftiana to test this hypothesis. We collected 151 individuals from 17 populations and sequenced 2 chloroplast fragments and the internal transcribed spacer of rDNA. Five chlorotypes and 9 ribotypes were detected but no significant phylogeographic structure was revealed. The integrated results of phylogeographic studies of these 2 species clearly support the progenitor-derivative relationship between them. We infer that the western peripheral population of S. davidii migrated westwards from the Hengduan Mountains to the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River and differentiated from its ancestor in the process of adaptation to increasingly cold and arid environments with the uplift of the QTP and finally evolved into S. moorcroftiana during the Late Pliocene. In addition, our findings shed light on the idea that natural selection, as imposed by climate differentiation (especially mean diurnal range and precipitation seasonality), directly drove this peripatric speciation event after geographic isolation. The speciation of S. moorcroftiana is a strong case supporting Wu's hypothesis about the origin of Tibet's flora.
ISSN:0022-1503
1465-7333
DOI:10.1093/jhered/esx028