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(Miq.) C.K.Schneid. is a popular ornamental plant in Japan, for which the chloroplast genome has not been previously reported. Its complete chloroplast genome was therefore determined, using a high-throughput sequencing technique. The total length of the chloroplast genome was 157,256 bp, comprising a large single copy region of 89,680 bp and a small single copy region of 20,472 bp, separated by a pair of 23,552 bp inverted repeat regions. A phylogenetic analysis, based on the chloroplast genome, indicated that is the earliest diverged species within Ericaceae. The chloroplast genome structure of is similar to species from families within Ericales, but not other species of Ericaceae. The presented chloroplast genome will be useful for further systematic analyses and planning conservation strategies.

(Schult.) Makino is a traditional medicinal plant in Japan for which the chloroplast genome has not been previously reported. The complete chloroplast genome of was determined using a high-throughput sequencing technique. The total length of the chloroplast genome was 153,208 bp, and comprised a large single-copy region of 83,319 bp, and a small single-copy region of 18,375 bp, separated by a pair of 25,757 bp inverted repeat regions. A phylogenetic analysis, based on the obtained chloroplast genome, indicated that is closely related to , , , , and . The presented chloroplast genome will be useful for further taxonomic, pharmacological and evolutionary studies of .

Abstract Evolutionary radiation is a widely recognized mode of species diversification, but its underlying mechanisms have not been unambiguously resolved for species-rich cosmopolitan plant genera. In particular, it remains largely unknown how biological and environmental factors have jointly driven its occurrence in specific regions. Here, we use Rhododendron, the largest genus of woody plants in the Northern Hemisphere, to investigate how geographic and climatic factors, as well as functional traits, worked together to trigger plant evolutionary radiations and shape the global patterns of species richness based on a solid species phylogeny. Using 3,437 orthologous nuclear genes, we reconstructed the first highly supported and dated backbone phylogeny of Rhododendron comprising 200 species that represent all subgenera, sections, and nearly all multispecies subsections, and found that most extant species originated by evolutionary radiations when the genus migrated southward from circumboreal areas to tropical/subtropical mountains, showing rapid increases of both net diversification rate and evolutionary rate of environmental factors in the Miocene. We also found that the geographically uneven diversification of Rhododendron led to a much higher diversity in Asia than in other continents, which was mainly driven by two environmental variables, that is, elevation range and annual precipitation, and were further strengthened by the adaptation of leaf functional traits. Our study provides a good example of integrating phylogenomic and ecological analyses in deciphering the mechanisms of plant evolutionary radiations, and sheds new light on how the intensification of the Asian monsoon has driven evolutionary radiations in large plant genera of the Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains.

Ecological speciation is an important factor in the diversification of plants. The distribution of the woody species Rhododendron indicum, which grows along rivers and is able to withstand water flow when rivers flood (i.e. it is a rheophyte), is disjunct, in contrast to the widespread distribution of its relative, Rhododendron kaempferi. This study aimed to elucidate the phylogenetic relationships between R. indicum and R. kaempferi and the evolutionary processes that gave rise to them. The sequences of three non-coding chloroplast DNA regions (total length 1977 bp) were obtained from 21 populations covering the ranges of the two species. In addition, genome-wide SNPs were genotyped from 20 populations using a genotyping by sequencing method. Leaf morphologies were measured for eight representative populations. Two chloroplast DNA haplotypes, which were detected in R. indicum, were shared between the two species. Genome-wide SNPs identified two lineages in R. indicum and these lineages did not constitute a monophyletic group. Each of these two lineages was related to geographically close populations of R. kaempferi. Leaf morphology, which is a characteristic feature in rheophytes, was not differentiated between the two lineages in R. indicum. The morphological similarity between the two heterogeneous lineages may be a result of parallel evolution from R. kaempferi or of introgressive hybridization between the species due to strong selective pressure imposed by flooding.

Geographic and environmental isolations of islands and the mainland offer excellent opportunity to investigate colonization and survival dynamics of island populations. We inferred and compared evolutionary processes and the demographic history of Rhododendron tsusiophyllum, in the Izu Islands and the much larger island Honshu, treated here as the mainland, using thousands of nuclear SNPs obtained by ddRAD-seq from eight populations of R. tsusiophyllum and three populations of R. tschonoskii as an outgroup. Phylogenetic relationships and their habitats suggest that R. tsusiophyllum had evolved and migrated from cold north to warm south regions. We detected clear genetic divergence among populations in three regions of Honshu and the Izu Islands, suggesting restricted migration between them due to isolated habitats on mountains even in the mainland. The three regions have different changes in effective population size, especially, genetic diversity and population size of the Izu Islands are small compared to the others. Further, habitats of populations in the Izu Islands are warmer than those in Honshu, suggesting that they have undergone adaptive evolution. Our study provides evidences of montane rather than insular isolation on genetic divergence, survival of populations and significance of adaptive evolution for island populations with small population size and low genetic diversity, despite close proximity to mainland populations.

Tree form evolution is an important ecological specialization for woody species, but its evolutionary process with adaptation is poorly understood, especially on the microevolutionary scale. Daphniphyllum macropodum comprises two varieties: a tree variety growing in a warm temperate climate with light snowfall and a shrub variety growing in a cool temperate climate with heavy snowfall in Japan. Chloroplast DNA variations and genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms across D. macropodum populations and D. teijsmannii as an outgroup were used to reveal the evolutionary process of the shrub variety. Population genetic analysis indicated that the two varieties diverged but were weakly differentiated. Approximate Bayesian computation analysis supported a scenario that assumed migration between the tree variety and the southern populations of the shrub variety. We found migration between the two varieties where the distributions of the two varieties are in contact, and it is concordant with higher tree height in the southern populations of the shrub variety than the northern populations. The genetic divergence between the two varieties was associated with snowfall. The heavy snowfall climate is considered to have developed since the middle Quaternary in this region. The estimated divergence time between the two varieties suggests that the evolution of the two varieties may be concordant with such paleoclimatic change.

Background Mathematical modeling of biological processes is widely used to enhance quantitative understanding of bio-medical phenomena. This quantitative knowledge can be applied in both clinical and experimental settings. Recently, many investigators began studying mathematical models of tumor response to radiation therapy. We developed a simple mathematical model to simulate the growth of tumor volume and its response to a single fraction of high dose irradiation. The modelling study may provide clinicians important insights on radiation therapy strategies through identification of biological factors significantly influencing the treatment effectiveness. Methods We made several key assumptions of the model. Tumor volume is composed of proliferating (or dividing) cancer cells and non-dividing (or dead) cells. Tumor growth rate (or tumor volume doubling time) is proportional to the ratio of the volumes of tumor vasculature and the tumor. The vascular volume grows slower than the tumor by introducing the vascular growth retardation factor, θ . Upon irradiation, the proliferating cells gradually die over a fixed time period after irradiation. Dead cells are cleared away with cell clearance time. The model was applied to simulate pre-treatment growth and post-treatment radiation response of rat rhabdomyosarcoma tumors and metastatic brain tumors of five patients who were treated with Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery (GKSRS). Results By selecting appropriate model parameters, we showed the temporal variation of the tumors for both the rat experiment and the clinical GKSRS cases could be easily replicated by the simple model. Additionally, the application of our model to the GKSRS cases showed that the α-value, which is an indicator of radiation sensitivity in the LQ model, and the value of θ could be predictors of the post-treatment volume change. Conclusions The proposed model was successful in representing both the animal experimental data and the clinically observed tumor volume changes. We showed that the model can be used to find the potential biological parameters, which may be able to predict the treatment outcome. However, there is a large statistical uncertainty of the result due to the small sample size. Therefore, a future clinical study with a larger number of patients is needed to confirm the finding.

Biodiversity on an island presents complicated and unexpected patterns of evolution. Ulleungdo Island is a well-known example of such an oceanic island. Most systematic and evolutionary studies of Ulleungdo Island have focused on endemic species, for which the ancestral population derived from the mainland isolated and ultimately evolved into a distinct species. To gain a better understanding of the origin of the biodiversity of Ulleungdo, non-endemic taxa on the island should also be examined. Daphniphyllum macropodum , distributed in warm-temperate regions in China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, is an evergreen tree commonly found in the maritime broad-leaf vegetation on Ulleungdo. Thirty-two populations of D . macropodum from Ulleungdo and other areas in Korea and Japan and its close relative D . teijsmannii were included in a phylogeographic analysis using nuclear ITS and chloroplast DNA regions. Each species was found to form a distantly related monophyletic group in the MP trees based on the ITS data. In contrast, the chloroplast DNA data showed that the clade of D . macropodum was mixed with certain samples of D . teijsmannii . Some individuals of D. macropodum on Ulleungdo and those on southeastern Honshu consist of haplotypes typically found in D . teijsmannii . Our results suggest that some of the D . macropodum on Ulleungdo Island likely derived via introgression between D . teijsmannii and D . macropodum and that D . teijsmannii , currently not distributed on Ulleungdo, likely served as the maternal source. Our results also imply that plants of D . macropodum in the Kanto region derived independently from introgression between D . teijsmannii and D . macropodum with different maternal parents.

L., a widespread species in northern Eurasia, is a valuable medicinal plant, but its chloroplast genome has not previously been reported. We determined its complete chloroplast genome using a high-throughput sequencing technique. Its total length was 169,241 bp, consisting of a large single-copy region of 93,301 bp and a small single-copy region of 17,316 bp, separated by a pair of inverted repeat regions of 29,312 bp. A total of 140 genes were annotated, including 91 protein coding genes, 41 tRNA genes, and eight rRNA genes. The phylogenetic analysis shows that and of the subfamily Hypecoideae are monophyletic with the highest support.

The morphological traits and genetic backgrounds of hybrid individuals in a hybrid zone reflect the history of that zone. In the hybrid zone between Rhododendron japonoheptamerum var. hondoense (RJH) and R. japonoheptamerum var. kyomaruense (RJK), flower morphological traits that can be used to distinguish the two varieties were measured and leaves were sampled for DNA extraction. Reference populations consisting of pure RJH and RJK were also used. Genotype data for individuals were obtained by the multiplexed ISSR genotyping by sequencing (MIG-seq) method. RJH and RJK in the reference populations were morphologically and genetically clearly differentiated. In the hybrid zone studied, although there were morphologically pure RJH and RJK, and hybrids between them, most individuals, including those that were morphologically pure, had ancestries from both RJH and RJK. There were no significant correlations between morphological traits and the proportion of ancestry within an individual. These results suggest that this hybrid zone originated from the hybridization between the RJH and RJK in the past. The result of model comparison among population demographic models also supported this hypothesis, and the time when the hybrid zone was established was estimated to be 410,000 years ago. It is considered that accumulation of recombinations subsequent to the formation of the hybrid zone contributed to the inconsistency between the morphological traits and the fraction of each ancestral genome within an individual.