Allozyme diversity and geographic variation in the widespread coastal sedge, Carex arenaria

Abstract

Allozyme electrophoresis was used to investigate the structure of genetic variation in the rhizomatous coastal sedge, Carex arenaria, throughout its European range - from the SW Iberian peninsula to the Baltic region. Material was sampled from 77 sites in five geographic regions. Nine of the 13 investigated loci were polymorphic in the total material and there were interregional differences in the number of polymorphic loci per site and the percentage of variable sites. In the Scandinavia/Baltic region only 61% of the sites contained at least one locus with more than one allele, whereas all the British and SW Iberian sites were variable. There was a general tendency for the regional frequencies of the less common alleles at individual loci to decline from SW to NE. The mean (over loci and sites) within-site gene diversity (H(site)) was 0.064 (in calculations based on the number of observed multilocus allozyme genotypes within each sampling site). Although there was considerable variation between geographically adjacent sites, within-site diversity showed a general decrease from SW to NE in Europe. There were significant differences in within-region gene diversity (H(reg)) for the four most variable loci between the five regions. H(reg) generally decreased from SW to NE Europe and most loci showed the highest diversity in the SW Iberian peninsula and the Bay of Biscay regions. The mean (over loci) gene diversity in the total material (H(tot)) was 0.070 and the levels of diversity in Carex arenaria are substantially lower than is usual in rhizomatous sedges. The within-site, between-site and between-regional components of the total diversity were 92.4%, 2.5% and 5.1%, respectively. The low levels of overall gene diversity in C. arenaria and the successive decrease in diversity from SW to NE are interpreted in terms of the species' history of post-glacial spread into northern Europe. Despite the overall northwards decrease in diversity, the widespread occurrence of less common alleles and the lack of regional deviations from Hardy-Weinberg genotype frequency expectations suggest that C. arenaria is not predominantly self-fertilized.