Clonal Structure and Variability of Siberian Spruce (Picea obovata Ledeb.) in Isolated Populations at the Very North Limit of Habitat
O.V. LAVRINENKO, I.A. LAVRINENKO
Abstract
The Data on the Island Habitats of Siberian Spruce (Picea obovata) are presented for the Territory of the Bolshaya Zemlya Tundra (the basins of the Ortina and the More-Yu rivers) and the Malaya Zemlya Tundra (the basin of the Neruta river), which exist during the last 3500-4000 years under isolation from the main habitat. The genetic uniformity of the morphologically solitary spruce groups in relic islands is shown. These groups are cloning. It is shown using polymorphous peroxidase locus that lengthy isolation of spruce caused a decrease in heterozygosity in the tundra populations situated in the basins of the Neruta and Ortina rivers, in comparison with the forest-tundra population in the Basin of Kharayakha River, which has not lost a connection with the main spruce habitat. However, heterozyigosity level calculated using three polymorphous PER locuses for the tundra island of More-Yu turned out to be the same as that in the forest-tundra population. The tundra population of More-Yu also exhibited closer similarity with the forest-tundra population of the Kharayakha with respect to the Zhivotovsky phenetic similarity index calculated on the basis of EF spectra of superoxide dismutase, esterases and peroxidases.
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