Determining Genetic and Clonal Diversity of Typha spp. Using Microsatellites Markers

Cattails are keystone emergent wetland plants that use both sexual and vegetative modes of reproduction. There are three taxa of cattails found in Minnesota. Typha latifolia L. the native cattail, Typha angustifolia L. an introduced invasive species that is competitively superior to the native cattail species and Typha x glauca Godr. a proposed hybrid of the native and exotic cattail species that is considered to be highly sterile. Because hybridization as result of vegetative propagation, is now thought to be an essential factor behind the spread of cattail species in Typha in wetlands, the goal of my undergraduate research was to determine the utility of microsatellite genetic markers to assess the level of genetic diversity found among Typha individuals of the three taxa at several geographic sites near Mankato, MN. DNA samples from leaf tissue were extracted, amplified by PGR using previous described microsatellite primers and electrophoresed to determine the genotypic and allelic diversity patterns among these, individuals. I observed a greater difference in allele frequency of the various typha taxa within a sampled wetland than between the various wetlands.Clonal and intraspecific sexual modes of reproduction were identified to be responsible for the genetic diversity in the sampled wetlands according to analysis of the allelic patterns. This could possibly explain the reason behind the successful propagation of Typha angustifolia L consequently abundance in all the wetlands. Further analysis of the three taxa alleles will determine the relative rates of reproduction within and between wetlands, source and sink populations of alleles, and finally colonization patterns of the cattail species