Genetic analyses of ancient tea trees provide insights into the breeding history and dissemination of Chinese Assam tea(Camellia sinensis var.assamica)

Chinese Assam tea(Camellia sinensis var.assamica)is an important tea crop with a long history of cultivation in Yunnan,China.Despite its potential value as a genetic resource,its genetic diversity and domestication/breeding history remain unclear.To address this issue,we genotyped 469 ancient tea plant trees representing 26 C.sinensis var.assamica populations,plus two of its wild relatives(six and three populations of C.taliensis and C.crassicolumna,respectively)using 16 nuclear microsatellite loci.Results showed that Chinese Assam tea has a relatively high,but comparatively lower gene diversity(H_(S)=0.638)than the wild relative C.crassicolumna(H_S=0.658).Clustering in STRUCTURE indicated that Chinese Assam tea and its two wild relatives formed distinct genetic groups,with considerable interspecific introgression.The Chinese Assam tea accessions clustered into three gene pools,corresponding well with their geographic distribution.However,New Hybrids analysis indicated that 68.48%of ancient Chinese Assam tea plants from Xishuangbanna were genetic intermediates between the Puer and Lincang gene pools.In addition,10%of the ancient Chinese Assam tea individuals were found to be hybrids between Chinese Assam tea and C.taliensis.Our results suggest that Chinese Assam tea was domesticated separately in three gene pools(Puer,Lincang and Xishuangbanna)in the Mekong River valley and that the hybrids were subsequently selected during the domestication process.Although the domestication history of Chinese Assam tea in southwestern Yunnan remains complex,our results will help to identify valuable genetic resources that may be useful in future tea breeding programs.

Incomplete reproductive isolation between Rhododendron taxa enables hybrid formation and persistence

The evolutionary consequences of hybridization ultimately depend on the magnitude of reproductive isolation between hybrids and their parents. We evaluated the relative contributions of pre-and post-zygotic barriers to reproduction for hybrid formation, hybrid persistence and potential for reproductive isolation of hybrids formed between two Rhododendron species,R. spiciferum and R. spinuliferum. Our study established that incomplete reproductive isolation promotes hybrid formation and persistence and delays hybrid speciation.All pre-zygotic barriers to reproduction leading to hybrid formation are incomplete: parental species have overlapping flowering; they share the same pollinators;reciprocal assessments of pollen tube germination and growth do not differ among parents. The absence of post-zygotic barriers between parental taxa indicates that the persistence of hybrids is likely. Reproductive isolation was incomplete between hybrids and parents in all cases studied, although asymmetric differences in reproductive fitness were prevalent and possibly explain the genetic structure of natural hybrid swarms where hybridization is known to be bidirectional but asymmetric. Introgression, rather than speciation, is a probable evolutionary outcome of hybridization between the two Rhododendron taxa. Our study provides insights into understanding the evolutionary implications of natural hybridization in woody plants.

Biotic and abiotic factors determine species diversity-productivity relationships in mountain meadows

Aims Species diversity–productivity relationships in natural ecosystems have been well documented in the literature.However,biotic and abiotic factors that determine their relationships are still poorly understood,especially under future climate change scenarios.Methods Randomized block factorial experiments were performed in three meadows along an elevational gradient on Yulong Mountain,China,where open-top chambers and urea fertilizer manipulations were used to simulate warming and nitrogen addition,respectively.Besides species diversity,we measured functional diversity based on five traits:plant height,specific leaf area and leaf carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus contents.Several abiotic factors relating to climate(air temperature and precipitation)and soil chemistry(pH,organic carbon concentration,total nitrogen concentration and phosphorus concentration)were also measured.Generalized linear mixed-effect models were used to investigate the responses of species diversity and productivity to elevation,warming,nitrogen addition and their interactions.The effects of biotic and abiotic factors on the direction and magnitude of their relationship were also assessed.Important Findings Species diversity decreased with increasing elevation and declined under warming at mid-elevation,while productivity decreased with increasing elevation.Functional richness,maximum air temperature,soil pH and their interactions showed strong but negative influences on the species diversity–productivity relationship;the relationship shifted from positive to neutral and then to slightly negative as these sources of variation increased.Our study highlights the negative effects of short-term warming on species diversity and emphasizes the importance of both biotic and abiotic drivers of species diversity–productivity relationships in mountain meadow communities.

The effects of evolutionary and environmental variance on estimates of phylogenetic diversity in temperate forest plots

Aims Phylogenetic diversity metrics can discern the relative contributions of ecological and evolutionary processes associated with the assembly of plant communities.However,the magnitude of the potential variation associated with phylogenetic methodologies,and its effect on estimates of phylogenetic diversity,remains poorly understood.Here,we assess how sources of variation associated with estimates of phylogenetic diversity can pote ntially affect our understanding of plant community structure for a series of temperate forest plots in China.Methods In total,20 forest plots,comprising of 274 woody species and 581 herbaceous species,were surveyed and sampled along an elevational gradient of 2800 m on Taibai Mountain,China.We used multi-model inference to search for the most parsimonious relationship between estimates of phylogenetic diversity and each of four predictors(i.e.type of phylogenetic reconstruction method,phylogenetic diversity metric,woody or herbaceous growth form and elevation),and their pairwise interactions.Important Findings There was nosignificant difference in patterns of phylogenetic diversity when using synthesis-based vs.molecular-based phylogenetic methods.Results showed that elevation,the type of phylogenetic diversity metric,growth form and their interactions,accounted for>44% of the variance in our estimates of phylogenetic diversity.In general,phylogenetic diversity decreased with increasing elevation;however,the trend was weaker for herbaceous plants than for woody plants.Moreover,the three phylogenetic diversity metrics showed consistent patterns(i.e.clustered)across the elevational gradient for woody plants.For herbaceous plants,the mean pairwise distanee showed a random distribution over the gradient.These results suggest that a better understanding of temperate forest comunity structure can be obtained when estimates of phylogenetic diversity include methodological and environmental sources of variation.