Genetic differentiation of Lilium longiflorum Thunb. var. scabrum Masam. (Liliaceae) in Taiwan using random amplified polymorphic DNA and morphological characters

Lilium longiflorum Thunb. var. scabrum Masam. is distributed along the northern, eastern, and southern coasts of Taiwan and in some of the outlying islets. It exhibits large amounts of morphological variation among populations in different habitats. Five populations were examined in the present study. In addition to a morphological study, RAPD were used to determine whether the observed morphological variation has a genetic basis and to investigate the variation pattern from different latitudes and different geographical locations. The results of the morphological analyses gave some indication of clinal trends; however, no conclusions can be made because of the limited number of populations studied. In the RAPD study, 140 primers were screened, 9 of which were selected to analyze in all of the samples. The results revealed that, with the exception of the islet Sansientai population, the closer the geographical locations of populations, the closer were their genetic relationships. The exception of islet Sansientai may result from the interruption of gene flow and the effect of genetic drift due to the small size of this islet's population. AMOVA analysis on RAPD data revealed that, of the total variation in the species, 14.08% was attributable to population differences and 85.92% to individual differences within populations when all populations were treated as belonging to a single region. The among population variance component was shown to be highly significant (P<0.001). When two northern populations were treated as a region and the other populations as another region, the result of AMOVA showed that the percentages of variation attributable to the differences between regions, among populations within regions, and among individuals within populations were 5.94% (p<0.001), 10.18% (p<0.001), and 83.88% (p<0.001), respectively.