ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Systematics and Evolution
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1623235
Genetic structure and local adaptation of Nitraria sphaerocarpa populations from arid northwestern China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Xinjiang University, Urumqi, China
- 2Xinjiang Institute of Ecologyand Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China
- 3College of Life Sciences, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, China
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Introduction: Understanding the genetic basis of local adaptation in non-model species is one of the fundamental goals in ecological and evolutionary biology. Researches on the genetic mechanisms of local adaptation in desert plants is crucial to comprehend how species adapt to heterogeneous environments in arid regions under the background of climate warming. Methods: In this study, the typical superxerophytic constructive species of Nitraria sphaerocarpa, which is fragmentarily distributed in arid northwestern China, was sampled with 20 populations. A total of 10,828 high-quality SNPs were obtained by ddRAD-seq from 200 individuals of N. sphaerocarpa populations across the northwestern China, based on which the population genetic and local adaptation of N. sphaerocarpa was investigated. Results: The results showed that the population genetic diversity of N. sphaerocarpa was low. Twenty populations could be clustered into four lineages, which began to diverge in the Pleistocene. Mantel test showed that population differentiation was caused by geographical and environmental factors. Through gradient forest (GF), redundancy analysis (RDA) and niche comparison analyses, it was found that both temperature and precipitation factors affected the genetic differentiation of N. sphaerocarpa populations. Twenty-two loci associated with local adaptation were identified by environmental association analysis (EAA) using LFMM and RDA. Three successfully annotated environmental adaptive loci (EAL) were related to physiological processes in response to abiotic stresses such as drought, heat and cold. Discussion: In conclusion, the spatial genetic structure of N. sphaerocarpa populations showed a fragmented pattern in the latitude gradient. The main pressure of environmental adaptation was the changes of temperature and precipitation. Physiological adaptation appears to be an important mechanism in response to environmental stress.
Keywords: N. sphaerocarpa, DdRAD-seq, Fragmented distributions, Population Genetics, Environmental association analysis, Environmental adaptive loci
Received: 05 May 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ma, Li, Zhang, Tian and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yan Li, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, China
Hong-Xiang Zhang, Xinjiang Institute of Ecologyand Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China
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