Divergent pattern of nuclear genetic diversity across the range of the Afromontane Prunus africana mirrors variable climate of African highlands.

Background And Aims: Afromontane forest ecosystems share a high similarity of plant and animal biodiversity, although they occur mainly on isolated mountain massifs throughout the continent. This resemblance has long provoked questions on former wider distribution of Afromontane forests. In this study Prunus africana (one of the character trees of Afromontane forests) is used as a model for understanding the biogeography of this vegetation zone.

Bioactive constituents in Prunus africana: geographical variation throughout Africa and associations with environmental and genetic parameters.

Prunus africana--an evergreen tree found in Afromontane forests--is used in traditional medicine to cure benign prostate hyperplasia. Different bioactive constituents derived from bark extracts from 20 tree populations sampled throughout the species' natural range in Africa were studied by means of GC-MSD. The average concentration [mg/kgw/w] in increasing order was: lauric acid (18), myristic acid (22), n-docosanol (25), ferulic acid (49), β-sitostenone (198), β-sitosterol (490), and ursolic acid (743).

Phylogeography of the Afromontane Prunus africana reveals a former migration corridor between East and West African highlands.

Scattered populations of the same tree species in montane forests through Africa have led to speculations on the origins of distributions. Here, we inferred the colonization history of the Afromontane tree Prunus africana using seven chloroplast DNA loci to study 582 individuals from 32 populations sampled in a range-wide survey from across Africa, revealing 22 haplotypes. The predominant haplotype, HT1a, occurred in 13 populations of eastern and southern Africa, while a second common haplotype, HT1m, occurred in populations of western Uganda and western Africa.