- Paris, France
July 21 to 23, 2025 - +1-571-5561014
plant@precisionglobalconferences.com
Speakers
Hanny Lidetu Solomon
- Designation: Addis Ababa University
- Country: Ethiopia
- Title: Morphological and Molecular Variations of Euryops Prostratus B. Nord. and Euryops Pinifolius A. Rich. (Asteraceae) Based on ITS and trnL trnF Markers
Biography
My name is Hanny Lidetu. I am a lecturer at Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I am a qualified Botanist with a master’s in Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management. A committed and dedicated professional with a proven ability to work in Plant areas, motivated and supportive to all level colleagues to make best use of knowledge & performance by encouraging them to create a positive & energetic environment. Experience gained during my research stay in Germany on Molecular laboratory work and Phylogenetic analyses. I completed a Species Distribution Modeling and R programming course and trained in taxonomic revision of plant species in the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, London. In my free time, I like exploring new places.
Abstract
The genus Euryops belongs to the Asteraceae family. Among the Euryops species recorded worldwide, only three species occur in Ethiopia, which is also endemic to the country. These are E. prostratus B. Nord., E. antinorii (Avetta) S. Moore, and E. pinifolius A. Rich. Although there are attempts at phylogeographic studies for most Euryops species, detailed evaluations of the Ethiopian taxa's genetic diversity and divergent history are limited. Thus, the main objective of this study is to investigate the morphological and molecular variation of two of the three endemic species of Euryops in Ethiopia. One hundred eighty samples were collected from the Bale Mountains, Mt. Choke, Mt. AbuneYosef, and Guassa Community Conservation Area. The cpDNA trnL-trnF regions and ITS of nrDNA were used to understand the geographic structure and reconstruct the evolutionary history of E. prostratus and E. pinifolius.
CodonCode was used for DNA sequence editing and alignment. Fifty-four E. prostratus and 88 samples of E. pinifolius were sequenced for the ITS region. On the other hand, 33 samples of E. pros tratus and 38 samples of E. pinifolius were sequenced for the trnL-trnF region. The morphological analysis of variance using different characters showed a significant variation among the two species. The Maximum Likelihood, Neighbor-Joining, and Maximum Parsimony methods separated the two species with a reliable bootstrap support value. The divergence time of the species is based on the ITS marker. I suggested that E. prostratus and E. pinifolius diverged 4 Ma years ago during the early Pliocene. Still, based on the trnL-trnF marker, they diverged 11Ma years ago during the late Miocene. The population structure result using the AMOVA test in ITS and trnL-trnF markers revealed the presence of higher genetic variation within populations than among populations.
Similarly, all populations were best clustered at K=2 except for E. prostratus clustered at K=9 based on the trnL-trnF marker. The neutrality tests have revealed that E. prostratus and E. pinifolius populations have experienced recent population expansion events and population bottlenecks. Regarding the distribution of molecular variants, both species
Have shown different haplotype patterns. Whereas E. prostratus has 3 ITS and two trnL-trnF haplotypes, E. pinifolius has 7 ITS and four trnL-trnF haplotypes. Sanetti Plateau, Mt. Choke, and Guassa showed more haplotypes. Generally, any conservation effort should consider these endemic species' genetic variations and diversity.
Key Words: Divergence, Euryops, ITS, Haplotype, Phylogeny, Phylogeographic, trnL-trnF
Don't miss our future updates!