TITLE	Low RAPD polymorphism in Archangiopteris itoi, a rare and endemic fern in Taiwan
AUTHOR	Tsai-Wen Hsu Department of Botany, Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute, Nantou 552, Taiwan Shan-Juei Moore Laboratory of Pteridophytes, No. 104, 3F, Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei, Taiwan Tzen-Yuh Chiang Department of Biology, Cheng-Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
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ABSTRACT	Archangiopteris itoi, an endemic fern in Taiwan, is under threat due to human disturbance. Based on fossil evidence the origin of Archangiopteris can be dated to the Middle Jurassic Age. Field survey indicated that only eighteen individuals were left in the wild. The population at Lienhwachi, on which the species was named, is now extinct. The genetic variation of the population remaining at Wulai was assessed by RAPD fingerprinting. Of 40 oligo primers, only one revealed polymorphism. Nevertheless, this primer enabled identification of six haplotypes. The low variability within the population is ascribed to the small population size, which was constrained largely due to habitat disturbance. In the small population, genetic drift will have greater effects leading to loss of variation at most loci. In this study, RAPD data indicated that some variation existed within the population, thus suggesting that materials were available for re-establishment of the populations.
KEYWORD	Archangiopteris itoi; Conservation biology; DNA fingerprinting; Ferns; Genetic variation; RAPD; Taiwan;
ARTICLE INFO	Botanical Bulletin of Academia Sinica, Volume 41 Number 1 January 2000, page 15-18, 4 pages
PUBLISHER	Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China