Genetic variation in Tertiary relics: The case of eastern-Mediterranean (Pinaceae).

The eastern-Mediterranean taxa, which include both widely distributed species and taxa with minuscule ranges, represent a good model to study the impacts of range size and fragmentation on the levels of genetic diversity and differentiation. To assess the patterns of genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships among eastern-Mediterranean taxa, genetic variation was assessed by eight nuclear microsatellite loci in 52 populations of taxa with a focus on those distributed in Turkey and the Caucasus. Both at the population and the taxon level, the subspecies or regional populations of s.