We studied the phylogeography of Chinese yew ( Taxus wallichiana ), a tree species distributed over most of southern China and adjacent regions. A total of 1235 individuals from 50 populations from China and North Vietnam were analysed for chloroplast DNA variation using polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism of the trn L‐F intron‐spacer region. A total of 19 different haplotypes were distinguished....

To examine the performance and information content of different marker systems, comparative assessment of population genetic diversity was undertaken in nine populations of Athyrium distentifolium using nine genomic and 10 expressed sequence tag (EST) microsatellite (SSR) loci, and 265 amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) loci from two primer combinations. In range‐wide comparisons (European vs. North American populat...

The attributes of codominance, reproducibility and high resolution have all contributed towards the current popularity of nuclear microsatellites as genetic markers in molecular ecological studies. One of their major drawbacks, however, is the development phase required to obtain working primers for a given study species. To facilitate project planning, we have reviewed the literature to quantify the workload involved in isola...

Chloroplast DNA sequences were obtained from 331 Asplenium ceterach plants representing 143 populations from throughout the range of the complex in Europe, plus outlying sites in North Africa and the near East. We identified nine distinct haplotypes from a 900 bp fragment of trnL‐trnF gene. Tetraploid populations were encountered throughout Europe and further afield, whereas diploid populations were scarcer and predominated in...