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Revisiting the provenance delineation of a widespread shrub, Frangula alnus—the role of spatial, temporal and environmental patterns

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Abstract

Including population genetic aspects into the selection of planting material within the framework of conservation and restoration measures is of vital importance for the long-term persistence of populations. This is especially true facing climate change since genetic diversity and the spread of potentially beneficial alleles are important for the adaptability of populations. Therefore, knowledge about genetic variability within and between populations is a critical aspect when determining provenance regions. In our study, we investigated the population genetic structure of a widespread, insect-pollinated and mainly bird-dispersed shrub species, Frangula alnus, on the basis of seven microsatellites and two chloroplast DNA markers throughout Germany. The aim was to determine the spatial, temporal and ecological processes genetically structuring populations to critically revise existing provenance regions. Therefore, we conducted analyses on different spatial scales (country-wide, regional and local) using the two different marker sets in addition to environmental variables. We detected distinct patterns on all spatial scales which indicated influences of historic recolonization processes, regional differences of seed dispersal across the landscape, as well as small-scale spatial genetic structures attributable to local dispersal processes. No relation of underlying environmental gradients such as temperature or precipitation and genetic patterns was found. We conclude that different aspects of historic and more recent gene flow shape population genetic structures and that a thorough analysis on a variety of spatial, temporal and environmental scales is necessary to appropriately select planting material for conservation and restoration measures. Correspondingly, management advice regarding provenance delineations will be provided.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to all the forest rangers, colleagues and friends who supported this study by collecting leaf material for the genetic analysis throughout Germany. Many thanks go to Christina Mengel and Sascha Liepelt for their support and helpful advices regarding the laboratory work. Moreover, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This project was funded by the program “Forschung für die Praxis” by the Hesse State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts.

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Correspondence to Eva Mosner.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Data archiving statement

Genotyping data of all collected samples for the seven microsatellites as well as cpDNA data of the corresponding number of samples are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.215sn.

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Communicated by J. Beaulieu

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Mosner, E., Eimert, K., Hüwe, U. et al. Revisiting the provenance delineation of a widespread shrub, Frangula alnus—the role of spatial, temporal and environmental patterns. Tree Genetics & Genomes 13, 63 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-017-1142-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-017-1142-z

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