Genetic structuring in three closely related circumpolar plant species: AFLP versus microsatellite markers and high-arctic versus arctic-alpine distributions.

Genetic structuring in response to the glacial cycles has been investigated for many plant species, but exclusively high-arctic ones have not been studied. Such extremely cold-adapted species have probably experienced range reductions under the present climate. Here we compare three predominantly selfing species of Draba with different distributions and hardiness (D. subcapitata, high-arctic; D. nivalis, arctic to arctic-alpine; D. fladnizensis, arctic-alpine) for genetic structuring on the basis of two different types of molecular markers (10 microsatellite loci and 160 amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs)). The degree of genetic structuring within these species is of particular interest because it has been shown that they contain many cryptic biological species. The high-arctic D. subcapitata had less phylogeographic structure, less diversity and fewer private alleles than the other two species, suggesting that long-distance dispersal may occur more frequently in the high arctic, that hardy plants may have higher probability for establishment after dispersal under high-arctic conditions and that high-arctic species may have experienced a bottleneck during the present interglacial. In contrast, D. fladnizensis and D. nivalis showed distinct phylogeographic structure and more diversity, suggesting separate long-term refugia in Eurasia and North America/Beringia. The AFLP markers revealed more phylogeographic structuring than the microsatellites, possibly because of the higher number of loci surveyed and/or because structure at very large geographic scales is blurred by high mutation rate leading to homoplasy at microsatellite loci. The number of genetic groups detected was in any case insignificant compared with the numerous cryptic biological species known within these species, supporting rapid development of sterility barriers.