Open AccessComparative phylogeography of two sympatric beeches in subtropical China: Species‐specific geographic mosaic of lineages
Author(s) -
Zhang ZhiYong,
Wu Rong,
Wang Qun,
Zhang ZhiRong,
LópezPujol Jordi,
Fan DengMei,
Li DeZhu
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
ecology and evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.17
H-Index - 63
ISSN - 2045-7758
DOI - 10.1002/ece3.829
Subject(s) - sympatric speciation , phylogeography , subtropics , ecology , biology , mosaic , geography , china , phylogenetics , archaeology , biochemistry , gene
In subtropical C hina, large‐scale phylogeographic comparisons among multiple sympatric plants with similar ecological preferences are scarce, making generalizations about common response to historical events necessarily tentative. A phylogeographic comparison of two sympatric C hinese beeches ( F agus lucida and F . longipetiolata , 21 and 28 populations, respectively) was conducted to test whether they have responded to historical events in a concerted fashion and to determine whether their phylogeographic structure is exclusively due to Q uaternary events or it is also associated with pre‐ Q uaternary events. Twenty‐three haplotypes were recovered for F . lucida and F . longipetiolata (14 each one and five shared). Both species exhibited a species‐specific mosaic distribution of haplotypes, with many of them being range‐restricted and even private to populations. The two beeches had comparable total haplotype diversity but F . lucida had much higher within‐population diversity than F . longipetiolata . Molecular dating showed that the time to most recent common ancestor of all haplotypes was 6.36 Ma, with most haplotypes differentiating during the Q uaternary. [Correction added on 14 October 2013, after first online publication: the timeunit has been corrected to ‘6.36’.] Our results support a late M iocene origin and southwards colonization of C hinese beeches when the aridity in C entral A sia intensified and the monsoon climate began to dominate the E ast A sia. During the Q uaternary, long‐term isolation in subtropical mountains of C hina coupled with limited gene flow would have lead to the current species‐specific mosaic distribution of lineages.