Abstract

The Mediterranean Basin is an hotspot for bio-geographical and evolutionary studies, showing an exceptional level of biodiversity.
The main aim of this research is to explore the genetic diversity in two different Mediterranean forest species: Quercus suber L. and Pinus uncinata R.
In Sardinia the cork oak is extremely abundant throughout the island, extending from the lowlands up to the average mountain areas.
The chloroplast and nuclear microsatellite markers were used to evaluate the Q. suber population genetic structure across the Mediterranean origins. Phenotipic assessment is also evalueted.
For cpSSR Q. suber seems to be, as a general trend, characterized by an high level of genetic diversity (F_ST: 0.764) among populations and showed a clear geographical pattern.
Despite, the low nuclear F_ST value (0.088) point out a limited differentiation among populations, showing that the 91.24% of the total variation is observed within populations. No geographical patterns were revealed by nuSSR.
No association between cpSSR and nuSSR has been detected. In fact the Q. suber diversity investigated using chloroplast SSR showed different scenario than nuclear SSR. In Pinus uncinata populations the 29 nuclear candidate genes analyzed had a level of genetic diversity (Hd = 0.61) lower than those observed in others pines.
Genetic variation in quantitative traits has been shown in P. uncinata. This suggests that some genes may be under differential selection among populations.

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