Sweet Drinks Are Made of This: Conservation Genetics of an Endemic Palm Species from the Dominican Republic

Abstract

Pseudophoenix ekmanii is a threatened palm species endemic to the Dominican Republic. Sap from trees is extracted to make a local drink; once they are tapped the individual usually dies. Plants are also illegally harvested for the nursery trade and destroyed by poachers hunting the endemic and threatened Hispaniolan parrot. We used 7 DNA microsatellite markers to assist land managers in developing conservation strategies for this palm. We sampled 4 populations along the known distribution range of this species (3 populations from the mainland and 1 from the small island of Isla Beata), for a total sample of n = 104. We found strong evidence for genetic drift, inbreeding, and moderate gene flow (i.e., all populations had at least 4 loci that were not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, at least 9 loci pairs were in linkage disequilibrium, the pairwise F(ST) values ranged from 0.069 to 0.266, and had positive F(IS) values). Data supported an isolation-by-distance model, and cluster analyses based on genetic distances resolved 2 groups that match a north-south split. The population from Isla Beata had the lowest levels of genetic diversity and was the only one in which we found pairs of individuals with identical shared multilocus genotypes.

Research Article Population genetic structure of three species in the genus Astrocaryum G. Mey. (Arecaceae).

“…aculeatum, A. murumuru, and A. paramaca. Levels of genetic diversity (H E and H O ) found for the species of Astrocaryum presented here were also lower than most of the literature available for other palm species using microsatellite markers, which showed a minimum estimate for H E of 0.5 (Conte et al, 2008;Elshibli and Korpelainen, 2008;Choo et al, 2010;Namoff et al, 2011;Ottewell et al, 2012;Nazareno and dos Reis, 2014;Ramos et al, 2016). Nevertheless, similar results for H E and H O were found for Chamaerops humilis, with a mean N A equal to 3.67 and H E and H O equal to 0.374 and 0.366, respectively (Giovino et al, 2014).…”

“…The percentage of polymorphic loci found for the three Astrocaryum species was lower than that reported in other studies involving other palm species and using SSR (Conte et al, 2008;Elshibli and Korpelainen, 2008;Choo et al, 2010;Namoff et al, 2011;Ottewell et al, 2012;Giovino et al, 2014;Lanes et al, 2015;Nazareno and dos Reis, 2014). An extremely low value of polymorphism (6.17%) was reported for Livistona carinensis, an endangered palm species (Shapcott et al, 2009).…”

“…If we considered only polymorphic loci, H E and H O estimates would represent an increase of ~60% for A. aculeatum and ~33% for A. murumuru and A. paramaca (Table 4). If the low levels of genetic diversity exhibited in the studied species are a result of stochastic events, such as genetic drift, population bottlenecks, or inbreeding, we would expect to find a higher proportion of homozygotes with positive values for F IS (Namoff et al, 2011). However, fixation index and Wright's inbreeding coefficients suggested an excess of heterozygotes for A. paramaca.…”

“…Other population genetic structure parameters, such as Wright's inbreeding coefficient and gene flow, have shown that, in general, genetic differentiation (F ST ) is low, indicating genetic variation higher within -rather than among -populations and a high gene flow among populations (Elshibli and Korpelainen, 2008;Martins-Corder et al, 2009;Shapcott et al, 2009;Namoff et al, 2011;Silva et al, 2011;Giovino et al, 2014;Nazareno and dos Reis, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2014;Moura et al, 2015). Recently, Ramos et al (2016) found a high level of genetic diversity, mostly within populations, for adults and seedlings in populations of A. aculeatum, and along with results for spatial genetic structure indicated short-distance seed dispersal and modest levels of pollen flow.…”

Identification of Flavonoids in Methanolic Extract of Caryota urens (Fish Tail Palm): A Phytochemical Screening Involving Structure Analysis by FTIR Spectroscopy

“…The sap of fishtail palm is sweet in nature. So, it is used to produce sugar which is known as jaggery and also to make palm wine (Toddy) (Namoff et al, 2011). These species are commonly found in Asia especially from India to Myanmar and some islands country like Sri Lanka.…”