ORIGINAL PAPER New insights into the genetic structure of Araucaria araucana forests based on molecular and historic evidences M. A. Martín & C. Mattioni & I. Lusini & J. R. Molina & M. Cherubini & F. Drake & M. A. Herrera & F. Villani & L. M. Martín Received: 18 December 2013 /Revised: 14 February 2014 /Accepted: 18 March 2014 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract The conservation of genetic resources is a prereq- uisite for the maintenance of long-lived forest species. Araucaria araucana (Mol.) K. Koch is one of the oldest conifers in South America and a representative symbol of Chilean forest due to its endemicity and longevity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic structure of the current A. araucana populations in Chile, to verify the possi- ble genetic divergence between Coastal and Andean popula- tions and to assess whether bottleneck events have influenced habitat fragmentation and threaten the genetic resources and evolutionary potential of the species. Twelve natural popula- tions, nine from the Andes Cordillera and three from the Coast Cordillera were analysed by means of eight genomic micro- satellite markers developed in A. araucana. Results of analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) highlighted signif- icant differentiation between Coastal and Andean populations (16 %; P= 0.004), detecting one significant barrier that sepa- rated populations from both Cordilleras as maximally differ- entiated areas. At local scale, both ranges revealed significant inter-population differentiation, with higher values for Coastal populations compared with Andean populations. These results suggested the presence of four gene pools (three in the Andes and one in the Coast Cordilleras) and one population (VIL) in the Coast Cordillera that differed to the rest. The differentia- tion between the Andean and Coastal populations may pro- vide important baseline data that should allow further studies of landscape genetics in the species and that can contribute to develop conservation strategies for its genetic resources. Keywords Araucaria araucana . Genetic resources . Nuclear microsatellites . Population structure Introduction South America harbours the greatest biodiversity on Earth, containing five of the world’ s biodiversity ‘hotspots’ (Myers et al. 2000). The native forests of Chile constitute the most ancient and distinctive temperate ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere (Delmastro and Donoso 1980) and have been classified as a conservation hotspot due to their high species diversity and large number of endemisms (Myers et al. 2000). Although little information exists concerning the changes in distribution and genetic structure of these Chilean forests, it is thought that they have been affected by tectonics, volca- nisms and Pleistocene glaciations that caused species extinc- tion and migration northwards and to lower elevations. The most severe fragmentation in Chilean temperate forests oc- curred during the Quaternary period when glaciers occupied most of the current species’ distribution range and reduced Communicated by P. Ingvarsson Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11295-014-0725-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. A. Martín (*) : L. M. Martín Departamento de Genética, E.T.S.I.A.M., Campus de Excelencia Internacional Agroalimentario (ceiA3), Universidad de Córdoba, 14071 Cordoba, Spain e-mail: ge2macum@uco.es C. Mattioni : I. Lusini : M. Cherubini : F. Villani Istituto di Biologia Agroambientale e Forestale (IBAF), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Viale Marconi 2, 05010 Porano, TR, Italy J. R. Molina : M. A. Herrera Departamento de Ingeniería Forestal, E.T.S.I.A.M., Campus de Excelencia Internacional Agroalimentario (ceiA3), Universidad de Córdoba, 14071 Cordoba, Spain F. Drake Departamento de Manejo de Bosques y Medioambiente, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile Tree Genetics & Genomes DOI 10.1007/s11295-014-0725-1