Allozyme variation and conservation of the Tasmanian endemics, Eucalyptus risdonii, E. tenuiramis and E. coccifera

The rare Tasmanian endemic Eucalyptus risdonii is thought tohave arisen as a result of small, heterochronic changes to the genome ofits more widespread sister species, E. tenuiramis. Previousmorphological studies have shown that genetic differentiation betweenpopulations of E. risdonii and southern E. tenuiramisis continuous and much smaller than the separation between the southernand northern morphotypes of E. tenuiramis. However,morphological traits may be influenced by selection, possibly leading toconvergence, requiring an independent measure of genetic variation. Westudied allozyme frequency variation in E. risdonii, southernE. tenuiramis (parapatric with E. risdonii), northernE. tenuiramis (disjunct from southern populations), and E.coccifera (as an outgroup). Each morphotype had a level of geneticdiversity close to the average reported in ten other eucalypt specieswith similar distributions but the coefficients of populationdifferentiation within morphotypes were lower than in most othereucalypt species. The overall difference between morphotypes wasextremely small, possibly as a result of recent and rapiddifferentiation, but may also be the result of gene flow from otherpeppermint taxa, including E. amygdalina and E.pulchella. Southern E. tenuiramis has greater geneticaffinity with E. risdonii than with northern E.tenuiramis which supports recent evolutionary divergence of E.risdonii. In this study we have shown that taxonomic units are notnecessarily aligned with an equitable partition of the gene pool andthat conservation units should be much broader than single taxa in orderto preserve evolutionary processes.