Genetic diversity and geographic differentiation of disjunct Atlantic and Amazonian populations of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Psychotria ipecacuanha</Emphasis> (Rubiaceae)

Ipecac (Psychotria ipecacuanha) is a perennial, medicinal herb that grows in the understory of semi-deciduous tropical forests in the Neotropics. Ipecacs present a widely disjunct distribution, with two of its three ranges occurring in Brazil. The Amazonian populations are at least 1600 km from the nearest Atlantic populations. This work used ISSR markers to compare the genetic diversity and structure of populations from the two Brazilian ranges. Lower genetic diversity in Amazon populations (P = 60.11%, Hs = 0.18) and higher genetic diversity in Atlantic populations (P = 73.94%, Hs = 0.20) were detected. Differentiation between ranges were high (θ ^B = 0.6838, G_ST-B = 0.6665). AMOVA revealed that 65.3% of the total molecular variance can be attributed to regional differences between the two ranges. Principal coordinate analyses and cluster analyses organized ipecacs at either individual or population level into two exclusive groups that correspond each to one of the two disjunct ranges, without exception. The results do not support a scenario that postulates human-mediated, long-distance dispersal events as a plausible origin for the distribution of the Brazilian ipecacs, but indicate geographic isolation as a long-standing barrier to genetic exchange and connectivity among populations from different ranges. Conservation implications are discussed.