Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorYineger, Haile
dc.contributor.authorSchmidt, Daniel J
dc.contributor.authorHughes, Jane M
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-03T11:07:04Z
dc.date.available2017-05-03T11:07:04Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.identifier.issn1471-2156
dc.identifier.doi10.1186/1471-2156-15-31
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/66920
dc.description.abstractBackground Habitat loss and fragmentation may have detrimental impacts on genetic diversity, population structure and overall viability of tropical trees. The response of tropical trees to fragmentation processes may, however, be species, cohort or region-specific. Here we test the hypothesis that forest fragmentation is associated with lower genetic variability and higher genetic differentiation in adult and seedling populations of Prunus africana in North-western Ethiopia. This is a floristically impoverished region where all but a few remnant forest patches have been destroyed, mostly by anthropogenic means. Results Genetic diversity (based on allelic richness) was significantly greater in large and less-isolated forest patches as well as in adults than seedlings. Nearly all pairwise FST comparisons showed evidence for significant population genetic differentiation. Mean FST values were significantly greater in seedlings than adults, even after correction for within population diversity, but varied little with patch size or isolation. Conclusions Analysis of long-lived adult trees suggests the formerly contiguous forest in North-western Ethiopia probably exhibited strong spatial patterns of genetic structure. This means that protecting a range of patches including small and isolated ones is needed to conserve the extant genetic resources of the valuable forests in this region. However, given the high livelihood dependence of the local community and the high impact of foreign investors on forest resources of this region, in situ conservation efforts alone may not be helpful. Therefore, these efforts should be supported with ex situ gene conservation actions.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.description.publicationstatusYes
dc.format.extent1769399 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherBioMed Central
dc.publisher.placeUnited Kingdom
dc.relation.ispartofstudentpublicationY
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom31_1
dc.relation.ispartofpageto31_16
dc.relation.ispartofjournalBMC Genetics
dc.relation.ispartofvolume15
dc.rights.retentionY
dc.subject.fieldofresearchGenetics
dc.subject.fieldofresearchGenetics not elsewhere classified
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode3105
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode310599
dc.titleGenetic structuring of remnant forest patches in an endangered medicinal tree in North-western Ethiopia
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
dcterms.licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
gro.facultyGriffith Sciences, Griffith School of Environment
gro.rights.copyright© 2014 Yineger et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
gro.hasfulltextFull Text
gro.griffith.authorHughes, Jane M.
gro.griffith.authorSchmidt, Daniel J.


Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

  • Journal articles
    Contains articles published by Griffith authors in scholarly journals.

Show simple item record