Geographic genetic structure of highly polyploid Betula dahurica implies
a formation process of its disjunct distributions in northeast Asia
Abstract
Climate change and range shift during glacial cycles in the Quaternary
resulted in disjunct plant distributions. Geographic genetic structure
can imply historical processes that formed disjunct distributions.
Betula dahurica Pallas is common in continental northeast Asia but is
disjunctly distributed in the Japanese archipelago. To explore the
formation process of its disjunct distributions, genome-wide single
nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes, chloroplast (cp) DNA sequences,
and leaf morphology were investigated in 10 populations in three
regions, Primorsky, Hokkaido, and Honshu. Frequency distributions of the
ratio of SNP reads suggested that most individuals in the three regions
were octaploid, except for some hexaploid or heptaploid individuals
found in Hokkaido and Honshu. SNP genotypes of putative octaploid
individuals indicated that Honshu populations were diverged from
Primorsky and Hokkaido populations. This genetic divergence was
relatively small (0.010 < FST < 0.035) but larger
than those between Primorsky and Hokkaido (FST < 0.010) and
within regions (FST < 0.008). The effective population size in
Honshu was smaller than that in Primorsky and Hokkaido. CpDNA
(trnL–trnF) sequences found in Honshu were different from those found
in Primorsky and Hokkaido. The variations in leaf size and shape were
overlapped among the ploidy levels and among the populations. The
findings of geographic genetic structure suggest a plausible process
that formed the disjunct distributions, which includes the isolation of
persistent populations in Honshu and the post-glacial migration from
continental northeast Asia to Hokkaido directly or through Sakhalin.