Format: ORAL

Martina Temunovic1, Ana Terlevic2, Maja Mucko2, Hirzi Luqman3, Alex Widmer4, Simone Fior4, Ivana Reetnik2

1 Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, University of Zagreb, Svetošimunska cesta 25, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. 2 Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Trg Marka Marulica 20/II, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. 3 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, United Kingdom 4 Institute for Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland

Dianthus is one of the most diverse plant genera in the Mediterranean as a result of its rapid radiation in this area. Dianthus sylvestris s.l. (Caryophyllaceae) is a species complex distributed across southern and south-eastern Europe, and includes a large number of taxa identified based on morphological characters. Previous work has revealed that evolutionary lineages within the complex are not reflected by the current taxonomy, as species boundaries are primarily determined by past demographic events rather than by morphology. Here, we focused on six currently described subspecies distributed in the Balkan Peninsula and applied an integrative approach combining population genomic (RAD-seq), morphometric, genome size and environmental data, to resolve the intraspecific relationships and evolutionary history of the Balkan D. sylvestris populations. Population structure revealed a strong divergence of subsp. tergestinus from the rest of the Balkan lineage. More detailed genetic variation patterns within the Balkan lineage suggested two major groups of populations which were largely concordant with the two revealed morphological entities. The north-western group included populations well-connected by gene flow, formerly assigned to subsp. sylvestris and subsp. nodosus. A south-eastern group included more isolated clusters of populations, formerly assigned to subsp. alboroseus, subsp. bertisceus and subsp. kozjakensis. Our combined results (genetic, morphometric, genome size and environmental analyses) suggest survival of the Pleistocene glaciations in two main glacial refugia located along the eastern Adriatic coast, possibly followed by secondary contact in the intermediate area. However, we cannot exclude the existence of multiple smaller microrefugia for the south-eastern group. Finally, our results do not support the current taxonomy. Based on our integrative approach, we propose a species-level treatment for the evolutionary distinct D. tergestinus, and the recircumscription of D. sylvestris subsp. sylvestris and D. sylvestris subsp. bertisceus to correspond to the north-western and south-eastern genetic clusters, respectively.