Barrier to Gene Flow Between Eastern and Western Populations of Cronartium ribicola in North America.

ABSTRACT The population structure of Cronartium ribicola from eastern and western North America was studied to test the null hypothesis that populations are panmictic across the continent. Random amplified polymorphic DNA markers previously characterized in eastern populations were mostly fixed in western populations, yielding high levels of genetic differentiation between eastern and western populations (phi(st) = 0.55; theta = 0.36; P < 0.001). An unweighted pair-group method, arithmetic mean dendro-gram based on genetic distances separated the four eastern and four western populations into two distinct clusters along geographic lines. Similarly, a principal component analysis using marker frequency yielded one cluster of eastern populations and a second cluster of western populations. The population from New Mexico was clearly within the western cluster in both analyses, confirming the western origin of this recent introduction. This population was completely fixed (H(j) = 0.000; n = 45) at all loci suggesting a severe recent population bottleneck. Genetic distances were low among populations of western North America (0.00 to 0.02) and among eastern populations (0.00 to 0.02), indicating a very similar genetic composition. In contrast, genetic distances between eastern and western populations were large, and all were significantly different from 0 (0.07 to 0.19; P < 0.001). Indirect estimates of migration were high among western populations, including the number of migrants among pairs of populations (Nm > 1) between New Mexico and British Columbia populations, but were smaller than one migrant per generation between eastern and western populations. These results suggest the presence of a barrier to gene flow between C. ribicola populations from eastern and western North America.