Convallaria majalis L. s.l. (Asparagaceae Juss.) in Baikal Siberia

An interspecies diversity is a principal question for understanding of variability, geographical distribution and evolutionary history of the genus Convallaria. Considering the C. majalis s.str. and C. keiskei as the Eurasian species with overlapping morphological features there are scarce data on their genetic variability. The molecular genetic analysis of nuclear ITS1-2 marker, chloroplast gene fragments trnL-trnF and maturase K was used to study genetic structure of 112 Convallaria specimens collected throughout Eurasia. The maturase K gene based results were shown to be the most efficient to resolve genetic structure of studied species. Three main haplotypes namely ancestral East Asian, South European-Caucasian and North European were dominant across geographical ranges of species C. keiskei, C. transcaucasica and C. majalis, respectively. Moreover, three minor haplotypes Khankai, Korean, and Manchurian were identified from nucleotide analysis. All three main haplotypes of Convallaria were found In Baikal Siberia. The proposed approach was sufficient to resolve an origin and genetic relations of local populations of Convallaria in the Irkutsk Region. Detected low level of genetic differences in analyzed species allows considering the single species C. majalis in Eurasia.