Molecular Phylogeny And Genetic Structure Of Aquilegia From Northeast China

The genus Aquilegia,which belongs to the family Ranunculaceas,includes approximately 70 species worldwide and widely distributes in temperate regions of the northern hemisphiere.According to the flora of China,there are 13 Aquilegia species in China.It has been shown that species within Aquilegia show obvious differences in vegetative and floral traits with specializations for different ecological niches and pollinators.So,Aquilegia is considered as a geographically widespread species flock.In this study,we investigated the genetic structure and molecular phylogeny of Aquilegia in northeast China based on two chloroplast regions(rps16 and psb H-psb B)and two nuclear genes.Results showed that A.oxysepala(? = 0.0026,0.0028)exhibits the lowest genetic diversity.Topologies of Bayesian trees of Aquilegia based on two nuclear genes showed that A.japonica is the basal taxon of the 5 species from northeast China,while A.parviflora,A.oxysepala and A.yabeana form their own clades with well poster prior value(poster prior value = 1.00).However,A.japonica and A.amurensis form shared clades,which is consistent with the results of haplotype network.Furthermore,the genetic distance between A.japonica and A.amurensis is the lowest based on g AA4 and g AA7(FST = 0.07919,0.32091).These finding together suggested that A.japonica and A.amurensis are the same species.