Impacts Of Habitat Fragmentation On Genetic Diversity And Differentiation Of Liquidambar Formosana Populations

Habitat loss caused by fragmentation plays an important role in the biodiversity. But the genetic effect of fragmentation is still unclear. Studying the effect of habitat fragmentation on different plants is useful for understanding habitat fragmentation. As a wind-pollinated and wind-dispersed tree, how will the population genetic diversity and differentiation of Liquidambar formosana change in the islands habitat?In this study, different extent of fragmentation and peninsula sites were chosen. We used 10 pairs of polymorphic SSR primers to analyze the population genetic diversity and differentiation among populations. The results showed that:1)The number of alleles and the allele richness in the populations of mainland is higher than which in the populations of islands. But the inbreeding and heterozygosity were not affected by fragmentation. So we assumed that habitat fragmentation have negative effect on genetic diversity within L. formosana population.2)The number of alleles is positive related with the habitat area. The expected number with total area is smaller than the total numbers of alleles. The number of alleles cumulated from the smallest islands saturated more rapidly, so we assumed that several small populations are effected less by habitat fragmentation. Isolation had little influence on wind-pollinated plants such as L. formosana.3)Habitat fragmentation had no influence on genetic differentiation between populations as a result of unchanged gene flow.As a wind-pollinated and wind-dispersed plant, genetic diversity of L. formosana populations was negatively influenced by habitat fragmentation. But due to the wide spread distance, habitat fragmentation has no signiticant effect on genetic differentiation among L. formosana populations.