Contrasting fine scale genetic structure of two sympatric clonal plants in alpine swampy meadow featured by tussocks
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Conservation Biology, Ecology, Evolutionary Studies, Freshwater Biology, Population Biology
- Keywords
- clonal plant, spatial genetic structure, Kobresia tibetica, Blysmus sinocompressus, tussock, inbreeding, SNP, Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, clonal structure
- Copyright
- © 2018 Ning et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Contrasting fine scale genetic structure of two sympatric clonal plants in alpine swampy meadow featured by tussocks. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26946v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26946v2
Abstract
Tussock is a unique structure in wetland vegetation. Many tussock species reproduce mainly by clonal growth, resulting in genetically identical offsprings distributed in various spatial patterns. These fine scale patterns could affect the mating patterns and thus long-term evolution of wetland plants. Here we contribute the first genetic and clonal structure of two key species in alpine wetlands of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau: Kobresia tibetica and Blysmus sinocompressus, using > 5000 SNPs identified by 2b-RAD sequencing. The tussock builder K. tibetica has a phalanx growth form but different genets could co-occur within tussock, indicating it’s not proper to treat tussock as one genetic individual. Phalanx growth form does not necessarily lead to increased inbreeding in K. tibetica. B. sinocompressus has a guerilla growth form, with the largest detected clone size of 18.32m, but genets at the local scale tends to be inbreeded offsprings. Our results highlight that the contemporary advantage of B. sinocompressus facilitates the combination of clone expansion and fast seedlings, but its evolutionary potential is limited by the input genetic load of original genets. Tussocks of K. tibetica are more diverse and valuable genetic legacy of former well developed wet meadow worthy of conservation attention.
Author Comment
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