Genetic Structure Of The Aquilegia Japonica Species Complex

The genus Aquilegia, which belongs to the family Ranunculaceae, includesapproximately70species worldwide and widely distributes in temperate regions ofthe northern hemisphiere. According to the flora of China, there are13Aquilegiaspecies in China, of which A.flabellata and A.oxysepala are sister species. In thisstudy, we isolated9genomic simple sequence repeat and6EST microsatellites fromthe A.flabellata. Of these loci, we analyzed the genetic structures of this speciescomplex (including22populations and330individuals). According to the geneticdiversity analysis, A.flabellata（Ho=0.38，NA=123，Np=45）exhibits higher geneticdiversity than those of A.oxysepala（Ho=0.26，NA=99，Np=21）, hybrid（Ho=0.62，NA=54，Np=0）, A.yabeana（Ho=0.38，NA=37，Np=0）and A.parviflora（Ho=0.29，NA=40，Np=0）.In addition, the results of genetic differentiation revealed that, thespecies A.flabellata shows lower differentiation than those of A.oxysepala. Theseattributes lead us to conclude that different habitats play crucial roles in modulatingthe genetic structures of A.flabellata and A.oxysepala.