Analyses of genetic population structure of two ecologically important mangrove tree species, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza and Kandelia obovata from different river basins of Iriomote Island of the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan

We analyzed nuclear and chloroplast microsatellite makers to assess genetic diversity and examine genetic structure of two mangrove tree species, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza and Kandelia obovata recovered from nine major river basins of Iriomote Island of the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. The average number of alleles per nuclear locus per population was 2.6 in B. gymnorrhiza and 1.7 in K. obovata. Bayesian clustering analysis using InStruct identified two genetic clusters in B. gymnorrhiza and three clusters in K. obovata. Chloroplast microsatellites revealed two dominant haplotypes from B. gymnorrhiza and three haplotypes from K. obovata. The overall result suggests low genetic diversity for both species. AMOVA for nuclear microsatellites showed 9.3 % of population variation in B. gymnorrhiza. Although genetic differentiation between several populations was significant in this species, F ST suggested low to moderate level of differentiations between most of the populations. Distribution of genetic clusters and chloroplast haplotypes also suggested weak differentiations among B. gymnorrhiza populations. In K. obovata, population variation was, however, relatively high (27.8 %). The high differentiation between K. obovata populations was also suggested from the F ST and genetic clusters from nuclear microsatellites, and chloroplast haplotypes. A significant correlation between chloroplast genetic distances and coastline distances as well as haplotype distributions for both species suggest that propagules from each species mostly disperse to the neighboring river basins. While significant F IS and higher percentage of admixed clusters from nuclear microsatellites suggested inbreeding, continual gene exchange by propagule dispersal among populations especially among neighboring populations was suggested for both species from maternally inherited chloroplast microsatellites analyses.