Abstract
Roupala montana var. brasiliensis is a timber tree species native to the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest areas of Brazil. The wood was exploited for international markets, but there is no information on the conservation status of its natural populations, nor on other key aspects, such as mating system, gene flow, and inbreeding depression, essential for the species’ sustainable management and conservation. We report the first study of any Roupala species to apply a validated set of species-specific microsatellite markers to genotype adults, juveniles, and seedlings, and analyse genetic diversity, inbreeding, effective population size, and mating system. We studied four populations of the species in areas of mixed Ombrophilous forest with different disturbance levels (undisturbed to strongly disturbed) in southern Brazil. The species occurs at low frequency in the study forests, but the populations are genetically diverse without significant differences in genetic diversity levels related to disturbance. The study also indicated resistance to the severe fragmentation associated with low density of individuals, with a stable mating system showing preferential outcrossing, with some inbreeding (tm ≈ 0.83, F > 0.165). Despite being spatially isolated from each other, the populations are not reproductively isolated, receiving immigrant pollen from long distances, although there was no evidence of gene flow into the populations via seeds. Seedlings from self-fertilization show low levels of inbreeding depression, which may reflect earlier pre-germination selection events. There was loss of allelic wealth in the younger cohorts, which may be a warning of the fragility of the genetic diversity detected in populations. We consider the implications of the results for the development of ex and in situ conservation and tree improvement programs.
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Data Archiving Statement: Genotype and phenotype data have been submitted to the Figshare Digital Repository (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22897613).
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Acknowledgements
This study is part of the PhD dissertation of first author. We also thank Tiago Grespan, Isabel Homczinski and Guilherme F. Melchert for supporting the field work. The authors are grateful to the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Universal 402420/2016-0) for financial support for this research. The study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001. AMS (Grant No. 304650/2020-0) and EVT (Grant No. 304899/2019-4) are supported by CNPq research fellowships.
Funding
The reported research received funding from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), under Grant Agreement number 402420/2016-0. The study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.). Evandro V. Tambarussi, Alexandre M. Sebbenn and Edson Vidal were supported by research productivity fellowships granted by CNPq.
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Fernanda Bortolanza Pereira contributed to all stages by, designing the study, sampling the populations, laboratory analyses, statistical analysis of the data, and writing the manuscript. Alexandre M. Sebbenn contributed to the methodology, statistical analysis of the data, and writing the manuscript. Bruno C. Rossini contributed to the laboratory work and analyses and collaborated on writing the manuscript. David H. Boshier contributed with the design of the study and collaborated on writing the manuscript. Celso L. Marino, Miguel L.M. Freitas and Edson Vidal collaborated with manuscript writing, João R. B. F. Rosa Contributed to statistical analysis. Evandro V. Tambarussi conceived and coordinated the project, supervised the first author, acquired funding for the study, participated in the analyses, and edited the manuscript for submission. All authors read and revised the final manuscript.
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Pereira, F.B., Sebbenn, A.M., Boshier, D.H. et al. Gene flow, mating patterns and inbreeding depression in Roupala montana var. brasiliensis, a neotropical timber species. New Forests (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-023-10009-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-023-10009-7