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Ecotypes and genetic structure of Rhinanthus alectorolophus (Orobanchaceae) in southwestern Germany

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Abstract

European annual species of the genus Rhinanthus often exhibit seasonal ecotypic variation, a phenomenon also known from related genera of hemiparasitic Orobanchaceae. Populations with different flowering times exist, correlated with differences in a number of morphological characters. The present study evaluates the correlation of morphological characters and genetic differentiation of populations of Rhinanthus alectorolophus. Thirty-nine populations of three different subspecies from southwestern Germany were sampled. A total of 798 individuals were used for morphological analyses and 187 of these for AFLP analyses. Principal component analysis showed that morphological variation is mostly continuous. In a discriminant analysis based on morphological characters, only 89.7 % of all individuals were correctly assigned to their previously determined subspecies, indicating that subspecies identification is ambiguous for some populations. Using AFLP data and Bayesian assignment analysis, the sampled individuals could be grouped in three genetic clusters which do not correspond to the three subspecies. Instead, the clustering shows a clear geographic pattern and a Mantel test likewise revealed a significant correlation between genetic and geographic distances. Correlations of genetic distances with differences in morphological characters were weak and mostly insignificant. The results indicate that the subspecies of R. alectorolophus do not form discrete entities and that the character combinations distinguishing them are homoplastic.

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Acknowledgments

We are greatly indebted to H. Herwanger, E. Koch, M. Engelhardt, T. Joßberger, M. Sauer, and A. Wörz, who kindly collected R. alectorolophus specimens and samples for this study. Furthermore, we gratefully acknowledge H.-J. Zopfi’s advice and identification of some collections. P. Oswald and B. Wohlbier provided invaluable support in the lab. Last but not least, the comments of two anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of the manuscript are greatly acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, Stuttgart, Germany

    Thekla Pleines, Korinna Esfeld & Mike Thiv

  2. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Korinna Esfeld

  3. Departmentof Genebank, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Germany

    Frank R. Blattner

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  1. Thekla Pleines
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  2. Korinna Esfeld
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  3. Frank R. Blattner
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  4. Mike Thiv
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Correspondence to Thekla Pleines.

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606_2013_816_MOESM1_ESM.eps

Supplementary material 1 Fig. S1. Estimation of the appropriate number of clusters by Structure analysis of AFLP data from 38 populations of R. alectorolophus from Baden-Württemberg for K = 1 through K = 20. One run from K = 3 is excluded because it did not converge. a. Graph showing L(K) values (method of Pritchard et al. 2000). b. Graph showing ΔK values for each K (method of Evanno et al. 2005). (EPS 88 kb)

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Pleines, T., Esfeld, K., Blattner, F.R. et al. Ecotypes and genetic structure of Rhinanthus alectorolophus (Orobanchaceae) in southwestern Germany. Plant Syst Evol 299, 1523–1535 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-013-0816-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-013-0816-8

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