Late Pleistocene speciation of three closely related tree peonies endemic to the Qinling-Daba Mountains, a major glacial refugium in Central China.

ABSTRACT: Determining the factors promoting speciation is a major task in ecological and evolutionary research and can be aided by phylogeographic analysis. The Qinling-Daba Mountains (QDM) located in central China form an important geographic barrier between southern subtropical and northern temperate regions, and exhibit complex topography, climatic, and ecological diversity. Surprisingly, few phylogeographic analyses and studies of plant speciation in this region have been conducted. To address this issue, we investigated the genetic divergence and evolutionary histories of three closely related tree peony species (Paeonia qiui, P. jishanensis, and P. rockii) endemic to the QDM. Forty populations of the three tree peony species were genotyped using 22 nuclear simple sequence

SUBMITTER: Xu XX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6635923 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature