Geographical patterns of genetic variation in rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) in the Mediterranean basin

Climate changes during the Quaternary had important effects on the evolution of European plant species. The distribution of genetic variability in rosemary, a strictly Mediterranean species of reputed Plio-Quaternary origin for which the diversification centre is hypothesized to be located in the western part of the Mediterranean basin, was investigated across the species range by using plastid microsatellites (plastid simple sequence repeat (cpSSR)) markers. Seven out of the 17 primer pairs screened were polymorphic, with up to four alleles, yielding a total of 17 size variants combined into ten haplotypes. A permutation test to investigate for geographical structure showed no significant …