Historical climate changes since Pleistocene have influenced the forest range in Northeast China, according to the pollen core data. How species response to the climate change remains unclear, especially for the dominant forest species, such as Korea pine (Pinus koraiensi), which shapes the mixed coniferous-deciduous forests. To characterize the spatial genetic pattern of Korea pine, about 200 individuals from 25 natural populations, representing the main distribution of the species were assessed by: (1)two intergenic fragments of chloroplast (trnL-trnF,trnS-trnG) and (2)five single copy nuclear genes (a3ip2, ccoaomt, erd3, IFG8612, AGP6). Evolution relationships between haplotypes were analyzed by haplotype network. The spatial distributions of haplotypes are viewed in ArcGIS.
Results/Conclusions
We found no variation for chloroplast markers throughout the sampling populations. 3 to 13 haplotypes were found for each of the five single copy nuclear gene markers. Except AGP6, all loci appeared two dominant clades which were separated generally by 3-8 mutation steps. Both Changbai Mt. and Xiaoxing’an Mt. harbor these two clades and no clear pattern was revealed. One haplotype of erd3 existed in many populations of Xiaoxing’an Mt., but none in Changbai Mt.. The pattern was the same in three haplotypes of a3ip2. Both mountains possessed some private haplotypes of all loci except erd3, which had only 3 haplotypes.
High diversity and widespread of the dominant nuclear haplotypes at each locus may suggest a homogenizing gene flow throughout the species range after the glacial period. However, the distribution of rare and private haplotypes implies that there might be multiple relict populations located in both Changbai Mt. and Xiaoxing’an Mt. during the cold period. More nuclear genetic markers and some Bayesian method would be applied in our further study. This pattern provides much information for the inference of historical processes of community assemblage.