Molecular evidence for natural hybridization in the mangrove genus Avicennia

Hybridization has been observed in several multi-species genera of mangroves; however,there has been no report on hybridization in avicennia in the indo-west pacific region. in this study,we sequenced 5 low-copy nuclear genes of avicennia marina,a. rumphiana and 2 individuals of their putative hybrid in the southeast asia region to test the hypothesis of natural hybridization between these 2 species. we demonstrated that both putative hybrid individuals possessed two types of sequences at each of the 5 genes,perfectly corresponding to those of a. marina and a. rumphiana,confirming the hybridization between these 2 avicennia species,and the 2 hybrid individuals are most likely f1 hybrids. sequencing of the chloroplast trnh-psba regions indicated that a. marina was the maternal parent of the two hybrid individuals. © 2014,pakistan botanical society,all rights reserved.