Consequences of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity and structure of Salix alba L. populations in two major river systems of Turkey

2019-08-01
Degirmenci, Funda O.
Acar, Pelin
Kaya, Zeki
Salix alba L. (white willow) is an indicator species of a healthy riparian ecosystem with great renewable energy potential in Turkey though habitats of the species in many river ecosystems are highly degraded or fragmented. Impacts of this degradation of river ecosystems on the magnitude and pattern of genetic diversity are not known. This study was aimed at assessing the genetic structure of S. alba populations in two highly degraded and fragmented river systems (the Goksu and Kzlrmak rivers) in Turkey with the use of 20 nuclear simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Fifteen of them were used for the first time in this study. Out of the 20 SSR loci, 10 loci significantly deviated from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium frequencies and five of them contributed greatly to the differentiation of populations. Generally, high levels of genetic diversity were found in populations of both Goksu and Kzlrmak river systems and moderate genetic differentiation (F-ST=0.07) between the river systems. On the contrary to expectations, genetic diversity was higher in middle populations of the rivers (Ho=0.67 of GRMID(Goksu river middle population), Ho=0.68 in KRMID1(Kzlrmak river middle population 1), and 0.65 in KRMID2 (Kzlrmak river middle population 2)) than in downstream populations (Ho=0.65 in GRDOWN(Goksu river downstream population), Ho=0.62 in KRDOWN1, 2 (Kzlrmak downstream populations 1, 2)). These could be due to experienced past bottlenecks, extensive vegetative material movements, and habitat fragmentation by constructed dams in the natural ecosystems of the two river systems. The genetic structure results revealed that the white willow populations in the two different river systems may have evolved from two different founder populations. A low level of genetic admixture between the river systems but high admixture within the river systems were observed due to extensive human-mediated vegetative material movements. The current study has provided valuable genetic data and information that could contribute insights to efficient conservation, management, utilization, and breeding of genetic resources of the species.
Tree Genetics and Genomes

Suggestions

Genetic diversity and structure of Populus nigra populations in two highly fragmented river ecosystems from Turkey
Çiftçi, Asiye; Kaya, Zeki (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019-08-01)
European black poplar (Populus nigra L.) is an important tree species in terms of social, economic, and ecological interest in Turkey. Although large poplar plantations meet the needs of the economy, natural genetic resources of the species have been highly degraded due to anthropogenic effects such as overexploitation and habitat fragmentations. To assess genetic diversity and structure of fragmented populations, 124 naturally distributed European black poplar trees from two major rivers (Kızılırmak and Gö...
Genetic structures of salix alba and salix excelsa populations from two major river systems in Turkey
Özdemir Değirmenci, Funda; Kaya, Zeki; Department of Biology (2017)
Salix alba (white willow) is an indicator species and an important component of an healthy riparian ecosystem with great renewable energy potential in Turkey. It is used as one of the most effective phytoremediation tool in the world for river cleaning and ecosystem rehabilitation efforts. Genetic structure of Salix alba populations in two river systems (Göksu and Kızılırmak Rivers) in Turkey were studied with the use of 20 microsatellites markers to provide information for effective conservation and breedi...
DIFFERENTIAL IMPACTS OF HABITAT FRAGMENTATION ON GENETIC STRUCTURE OF TWO IMPORTANT RIPARIAN SPECIES (SALIX ALBA & POPULUS NIGRA)
Durgut, Bilge; Kaya, Zeki; Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics (2022-2-23)
Salix alba and Populus nigra are two important tree species of riparian ecosystems. With a great ecologic and economic significance, they are naturally distributed in almost all river basins of Turkey. The genetic structures of these species in two river basins in Turkey were studied using eight common microsatellite markers to both species to reveal the impacts of habitat fragmentation. Therefore, the studied rivers were selected to represent a highly fragmented river, and a protected river from habitat fr...
Impacts of multistressors on the survival and life history traits of Daphnia Pulex
Bezirci, Gizem; Beklioğlu, Meryem; Department of Biology (2008)
As Daphnia have an important role in freshwater food webs, it is important to understand how environmental stressors affect their survival and life history traits. Daphnia pulex were first acutely exposed to a combination of NaCl salinities (0.00-10.0 g/L) and fish-exuded kairomone. The 24 and 48 hour LC50 values were 0.401 and 0.159 g/L in kairomone-absence and 1.962 and 1.007 g/L in kairomone-presence. Hence, survival decreased with increasing salinity, while the kairomone enhanced daphnid resistance to s...
Evaluation of salt tolerance in sto transformed Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana tabacum plants
Selçuk, Feyza; Yücel, Ayşe Meral; Department of Biology (2004)
Salinity is one of the limiting factors of crop development. Together with causing water loss from plant tissues, salinity also leads to ion toxicity. Under salt stress, increase in Ca+2 concentration in cytosol can decrease the deleterious effects of stress. The binding of Ca+2 to calmodulin initiates a signaling cascade involving the activation of certain transcription factors like STO and STZ. This signal transduction pathway regulates transport of proteins that control net Na+ influx across the plasma m...
Citation Formats
F. O. Degirmenci, P. Acar, and Z. Kaya, “Consequences of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity and structure of Salix alba L. populations in two major river systems of Turkey,” Tree Genetics and Genomes, pp. 0–0, 2019, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/42106.