Highly reduced genetic diversity of Rosa rubiginosa L. populations in the invasive range.

ZIMMERMANN, H.; RITZ, CH.; HIRSCH, H.; RENISON, D.; WESCHE, K.; HENSEN, I.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PLANT SCIENCES

UNIV CHICAGO PRESS

Año: 2010 vol. 171 p. 435 - 446

1058-5893

Rosa rubiginosa (Rosaceae) populations introduced to Argentina successfully invade various habitats forming extensive impenetrable thickets. To investigate the consequences of founder events, and to track the native origin of Argentinean populations, the genetic diversity of invasive R. rubiginosa populations was compared to that of native populations in Europe and genetic similarity was assessed between groups. We sampled 13 Argentinean and a total of 20 native populations in Germany and Spain, as these two countries represent the most likely origins of South American R. rubiginosa populations. One Chilean population was included, because an introduction to Argentina via Chile is also considered as possible. Two molecular marker techniques, dominant RAPD markers and co-dominant SSR markers, were applied. Genetic diversity of R. rubiginosa was generally low, as six RAPD primers only yielded 33 polymorphic bands, and eight SSR primers only gave 69 alleles for further analysis. Genetic diversity within the invasive range was lower (1-5%) than in the native range (9-15%), thus R. rubiginosa successfully invades Argentina in spite of having a low level of genetic diversity. PCoA and between-class analysis did not reveal the exact European origin of the invasive populations. However, our data suggest that a Spanish origin can be excluded. PCoAs of the RAPD- and SSR-datasets produced similar results (Procrustean fit, r=0.66, p