Natural hybridization and introgression between Ligularia cymbulifera and L. tongolensis (Asteraceae, Senecioneae) in four different locations

Natural hybridization has been considered to represent an important factor influencing the high diversity of the genus Ligularia Cass. in the Hengduan Mountains, China. Natural hybridization has been confirmed to occur frequently in Ligularia. To date, however, it has been demonstrated only within a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	PloS one 2014-12, Vol.9 (12), p.e115167-e115167
Main Authors:	Yu, Jiaojun, Kuroda, Chiaki, Gong, Xun
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Analysis Animal behavior Asteraceae Asteraceae - classification Asteraceae - cytology Asteraceae - genetics Biodiversity Biogeography Biology and Life Sciences Cell Nucleus - genetics Chloroplast DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid DNA DNA sequencing DNA, Plant - genetics DNA, Ribosomal Spacer - genetics Evolution Flowers & plants Gene flow Gene sequencing Hybridization Hybridization, Genetic Hybrids Hypotheses Intermediates Laboratories Lonicera subspicata Molecular Sequence Data Morphology Mountains Nucleotide sequence Nucleotide sequencing Parents Phylogenetics Phylogeny Plant sciences Ribosomal DNA Senecioneae Spacer Species diversity Sympatric populations
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Summary:	Natural hybridization has been considered to represent an important factor influencing the high diversity of the genus Ligularia Cass. in the Hengduan Mountains, China. Natural hybridization has been confirmed to occur frequently in Ligularia. To date, however, it has been demonstrated only within a single population. In this paper, we present evidence of natural hybridization in Ligularia from four different locations. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the nuclear ribosomal DNA and three chloroplast intergenic spacers (trnK-rps16, trnL-rpl32 and trnQ-5'rps16) of 149 accessions of putative hybrids and their putative parents (L. cymbulifera and L. tongolensis) were analyzed for evidence of hybridization. The ITS data clearly distinguished two putative parental species and sympatric L. vellerea and supported the hypothesis that those morphological intermediates were products of natural hybridization between L. cymbulifera and L. tongolensis. Moreover, several identified morphological parents were actual introgressed products. Because of hybridization and introgression, chloroplast DNA sequences generated a poorly resolved network. The present results indicate that varying degrees of hybridization and introgression occur differently depending on the habitat context. We conclude that gene flow caused by natural hybridization in Ligularia indeed plays an important role in the species diversity.
ISSN:	1932-6203 1932-6203