Origin of the Atlantic Azorean insular population of Calluna vulgaris (L.) Hull

Abstract The aim of the research was to determine the origin of an isolated Atlantic Azorean population of heather ( Calluna vulgaris (L.) Hull). The chloroplast DNA analysis showed it possessed genetic affinities with 4 populations of the Dinaric-Pontic group in the extra glacial zone of the Mediterranean area as well as with a population from the Atlantic coast (Coimbra) and a slight similarity to 5 other heather populations in this area. A hypothesis of the ancestral center of the Azorean heather population origin in the Dinaric-Pontic region and the proximate center of its ornithochoric dispersal to the Azores from the west of the Iberian Peninsula (Coimbra) has been proposed.