Hybrid zone of a tree in a Cerrado/Atlantic Forest ecotone as a hotspot of genetic diversity and conservation.

ABSTRACT: The Cerrado, the largest Neotropical savanna, and the Brazilian Atlantic Forest form large ecotonal areas where savanna and forest habitats occupy adjacent patches with closely related species occurring side by side, providing opportunities for hybridization. Here, we investigated the evolutionary divergence between the savanna and forest ecotypes of the widely distributed tree Plathymenia reticulata (n = 233 individuals). Genetic structure analysis of P. reticulata was congruent with the recognition of two ecotypes, whose divergence captured the largest proportion of genetic variance in the data (F _CT = 0.222 and F _ST = 0.307). The ecotonal areas between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest constitute a hybrid zone in which a

SUBMITTER: Muniz AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8803295 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature