GENETIC SIMILARITY IS HIGH BETWEEN INTERCONTINENTAL DISJUNCT SPECIES OF SENECIO (ASTERACEAE)

Senecio flavus (Decne.) Schultz-Bip. of the Saharo-Arabian and Namibian deserts and Senecio mohavensis Gray of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts form a pair of closely related disjunct annual taxa. The two species exhibit slight morphological differences and have different ploidy levels: all North American populations examined are tetraploid, while African and Asian populations are diploid. Senecio flavus comprises two morphologically and geographically distinct subspecies, subsp. flavus and subsp. breviflorus Kadereit. Electrophoretic examination of 13 enzymes revealed that the subsp. breviflorus has two additional isozymes relative to subsp. flavus, and that 5. mohavensis has four additional isozymes relative to subsp. breviflorus. Senecio flavus subsp. breviflorus and S. mohavensis are identical at 20 of the 21 (I = 0.952) remaining homologous loci. This value is much higher than the genetic identity values observed in other taxa with disjunct intercontinental distributions such as members of Agastache, Datisca, Liriodendron, and Styrax. This suggests that the Senecio disjunction may be of recent origin. Senecio flavus subsp. flavus from North Africa and Namibia has lower genetic identity values with S. mohavensis (0.857 and 0.805, respectively), implicating S. flavus subsp. breviflorus as the progenitor of 5. mohavensis. The complete lack of heterozygosity confirms that the plants are highly autogamous, and thus could have attained their disjunct distribution through long distance dispersal.