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Despite admixing two closely related Carex species differ in their regional morphological differentiation

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Abstract

Rarer species are expected to show stronger geographic differentiation than more common species. However, if rare species hybridize with common species, differentiation may be quite similar between the two due to genetic admixing via backcrossing. We studied morphological differentiation of plants of 21 natural populations of the more common Carex flava, 16 of the less common Carex viridula and 6 of their hybrids from 27 sites in three climatically different regions, Estonia, Lowland Switzerland and Highland Switzerland. Univariate ANOVA and multivariate principal component analysis of 14 morphological characters, describing both vegetative and reproductive characters, allowed to clearly distinguish C. flava from C. viridula. Carex viridula populations showed stronger regional variation than C. flava. Hybrids had both intermediate and transgressive characters in Switzerland and Estonia. On average, hybrids from Lowland Switzerland were more similar to Swiss C. flava than to C. viridula, while hybrids from Estonia were morphologically intermediate between plants of Estonian populations of the parental species. The results suggest that within-region genetic admixing between species has limited potential to lead to region-specific similarity between species, at least in our model system of the C. flava complex. We conclude that C. flava and C. viridula are clearly distinct species and that, despite hybridization, geographic differentiation is more pronounced in the less common C. viridula than in C. flava.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our co-workers who helped during the field work and others for valuable comments concerning the data analysis. We thank anonymous reviewers for critical reading and constructive comments. The field work was financially supported through a DORA programme (Doctoral Studies and Internationalisation Programme) of the Archimedes Foundation and by the University of Bern.

Funding

This study was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, institutional research funding (IUT 20-28, 20-29) and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence EcolChange).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Lai 40, 51005, Tartu, Estonia

    Lisanna Schmidt & Tatjana Oja

  2. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, 3013, Bern, Switzerland

    Lisanna Schmidt & Markus Fischer

  3. Botanical Garden, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, 3013, Bern, Switzerland

    Markus Fischer

  4. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Falkenplatz 16, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Markus Fischer

  5. Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland

    Bernhard Schmid

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  1. Lisanna Schmidt
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Correspondence to Lisanna Schmidt.

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Online Resource 1. Primary statistics (Mean and SE) of 14 morphological characters of Carex flava and C. viridula in three regions.

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Schmidt, L., Fischer, M., Schmid, B. et al. Despite admixing two closely related Carex species differ in their regional morphological differentiation. Plant Syst Evol 303, 901–914 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-017-1420-0

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