Publications by authors named "Yingxiong Qiu"

The deciduous American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua, Altingiaceae) is a popular ornamental and economically valuable tree renowned for its sweet-smelling bark resin, abundant volatile substances, and spectacular fall leaf color. However, the absence of a reference genome hinders thorough investigations into the mechanisms underlying phenotypic variation, secondary metabolite synthesis and adaptation, both in this species and other Liquidambar members. In this study, we sequenced and constructed a chromosome-level assembly of the L.

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  • Eleocharis dulcis, known as Chinese water chestnut, is a popular aquatic vegetable recognized for its nutritional benefits and unique flavor, now cultivated globally.
  • Researchers successfully assembled a comprehensive genome of E. dulcis, spanning 493.24 Mb and organized into 111 chromosomes, revealing a significant presence of repeat elements and many predicted protein-coding genes.
  • Analysis of the plant's genomic evolution indicated past events of chromosome breakage and duplication, while a study on gene expression during corm development showed notable differences between cultivated and wild varieties, especially during the middle swelling stage where genes related to starch metabolism were highly expressed.
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In order to thrive and survive, plant species need to combine stability in the long term and rapid response to environmental challenges in the short term. The former would be reflected by parallel or convergent adaptation across species, and the latter by pronounced local adaptation among populations of the same species. In the present study, we generated a high-quality genome and re-sequenced 177 individuals for Gymnocarpos przewalskii, an important desert plant species from North-West China, to detect local adaptation.

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  • - Understanding how populations of tree species diverge and adapt involves exploring factors like history, gene flow, and natural selection, especially in non-model species.
  • - Researchers sequenced the genomes of two closely related tree species, Liquidambar formosana and L. acalycina, to study their divergence and adaptation in subtropical China, revealing a history of allopatric divergence followed by contact.
  • - The study identified genetic regions linked to environmental adaptation and reproductive isolation, providing insights into how historical climatic changes shaped the evolution of East Asia's flora and setting the stage for future research in conservation and breeding.
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Water caltrop ( spp., Lythraceae) is a traditional but currently underutilized non-cereal crop. Here, we generated chromosome-level genome assemblies for the two diploid progenitors of allotetraploid (4x, AABB), i.

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Premise: Glacial/interglacial cycles and topographic complexity are both considered to have shaped today's diverse phylogeographic patterns of taxa from unglaciated eastern North America (ENA). However, few studies have focused on the phylogeography and population dynamics of wide-ranging ENA herbaceous species occurring in forest understory habitat. We examined the phylogeographic pattern and evolutionary history of Podophyllum peltatum L.

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'Living fossils', that is, ancient lineages of low taxonomic diversity, represent an exceptional evolutionary heritage, yet we know little about how demographic history and deleterious mutation load have affected their long-term survival and extinction risk. We performed whole-genome sequencing and population genomic analyses on Dipteronia sinensis and D. dyeriana, two East Asian Tertiary relict trees.

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This article comments on: Eun-Kyeong Han, Ichiro Tamaki, Sang-Hun Oh, Jong-Soo Park, Won-Bum Cho, Dong-Pil Jin, Bo-Yun Kim, Sungyu Yang, Dong Chan Son, Hyeok-Jae Choi, Amarsanaa Gantsetseg, Yuji Isagi, and Jung-Hyun Lee. Genetic and demographic signatures accompanying the evolution of the selfing syndrome in , an evergreen shrub, Annals of Botany, Volume 131, Issue 5, 11 April 2023, Pages 751–767, https://doi.org/10.

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  • A high-quality chromosome-scale genome assembly of Tetrastigma hemsleyanum reveals a genome size of 2.19 Gb, with about 73% comprised of transposable elements, primarily long terminal repeat retrotransposons.
  • The larger genome size compared to Vitis species is largely due to the proliferation of these LTR-RTs, and significant gene amplifications were noted in pathways associated with medicinal properties and environmental stress resistance through recent duplications.
  • The study also identified gene divergence between lineages in Southwest and Central-South-East China, highlighting genes related to response to stimuli and biosynthetic processes, offering valuable genomic resources for future research.
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The genetic effects of habitat fragmentation are complex and are influenced by both species traits and landscape features. For plants with strong seed or pollen dispersal capabilities, the question of whether the genetic erosion of an isolated population becomes stronger or is counterbalanced by sufficient gene flow across landscapes as the timescales of fragmentation increase has been less studied. In this study, we compared the population structure and genetic diversity of a distylous herb, (Rubiaceae), in two contrasting island systems of southeast China.

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Evolutionary and biogeographic processes determine species richness patterns of vascular plants between Eastern Asia (EA) and Eastern North America (ENA). However, the strikingly higher species richness of EA relative to ENA remains poorly understood from this perspective. Here, we studied the relative importance of biogeographical, evolutionary and ecological factors underlying differences in species richness between EA and ENA in Podophylloideae (Berberidaceae, Ranunculales; in total 10 spp.

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Clarifying the process of formation of diversity hotspots and the biogeographic connection between regions is critical in understanding the impact of environmental changes on organismal evolution. Polygonatum (Asparagaceae) is distributed across the Northern Hemisphere. It displays an uneven distribution, with more than 50% of its species occurring in the Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains (HHM).

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As one of the great survivors of the plant kingdom, barnyard grasses (Echinochloa spp.) are the most noxious and common weeds in paddy ecosystems. Meanwhile, at least two Echinochloa species have been domesticated and cultivated as millets.

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Background: The broad continuum between tropical and temperate floras in Eastern Asia (EAS) are thought to be one of the main factors responsible for a prominent species diversity anomaly of temperate plants between EAS and eastern North America (ENS). However, how the broad continuum and niche evolution between tropical and temperate floras in EAS contributes to lineage divergence and species diversity remains largely unknown.

Results: Population genetic structure, demography, and determinants of genetic structure [i.

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  • Researchers investigated the domestication of water caltrop (Trapa spp.), an underused non-cereal crop, revealing its historical significance in early Chinese agriculture.
  • They generated a high-quality genome assembly and found that water caltrop was likely first domesticated around 6300 years ago in the Yangtze River Valley and improved roughly 800 years ago.
  • By analyzing genetic data, they identified key genes involved in traits like larger fruit size and stronger root systems, contributing to insights on plant domestication and potential breeding strategies for this aquatic species.
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The study is aimed to investigate the reproductive biology characteristics of Polygonatum cyrtonema, especially including phenology, flower bud differentiation, flowering timing, floral traits, pollen vigor and stigma receptivity. The results showed that P. cyrtonema forms inflorescence before the leaves spread.

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Climate relicts hold considerable importance because they have resulted from numerous historical changes. However, there are major interspecific variations among the ways by which they survived climate changes. Therefore, investigating the factors and timing that affected population demographics can expand our understanding of how climate relicts responded to historical environmental changes.

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  • The warm-temperate and subtropical climate zones in East Asia are rich in diverse plant species, especially Tertiary relict trees, but little is known about their evolutionary history and adaptation to climate change.
  • A genomic analysis of 171 samples from two species in China and Japan revealed that changes in climate and geography influenced their divergence and adaptation to past environmental conditions.
  • The study highlights that while these trees have shown local adaptation in China, they remain vulnerable to future climate challenges, underscoring the need for conservation efforts.
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  • 'Living fossils' like Cercidiphyllum japonicum succeed ecologically over time, but how they withstand climate changes is still not fully understood.
  • Researchers sequenced the genome of C. japonicum and its related species to explore the genetic diversity shaped by demographics and natural selection, dating their speciation to the mid-Miocene and divergence to the Early Pliocene.
  • Despite significant reductions in genetic diversity due to climate events, long-term balancing selection and selective sweeps in stress response genes have likely helped the species adapt and thrive through these challenges.
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Stachyuraceae, an East Asian endemic family of shrubs or small trees, comprises a single genus, Stachyurus (c. 11 spp.).

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The Sino-Japanese Floristic Region (SJFR) in East Asia is one of the most diverse temperate floras in the world. However, the relative influence of Neogene palaeogeographical changes and Quaternary climatic fluctuations as causal mechanisms on species diversification remains largely controversial, because most divergence time estimates were inferred from single-locus data and have limited geographic or taxonomic sampling. To evaluate these influences, we use SNP markers from restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-Seq) loci and expressed sequence tags-simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers to investigate the levels of genetic variation, speciation and demographic history of the temperate-deciduous forest (TDF) endemic Cardiocrinum (Endlicher) Lindley (Liliaceae), a genus comprising three species in China (C.

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The evolutionary and population demographic history of marine red algae in East Asia is poorly understood. Here, we reconstructed the phylogeographies of two upper intertidal species endemic to East Asia, Gelidiophycus divaricatus and G. freshwateri.

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The genus (Stemonaceae) is an excellent model for studying the evolution of the Eastern Asia (EA)-Eastern North America (ENA) floristic disjunction and the genetic mechanisms of floral zygomorphy formation. In addition to the presence of both actinomorphic and zygomorphic flowers within the genus, species are disjunctively distributed between EA and ENA. However, due to the limited availability of genomic resources, few studies of have examined these questions.

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Dipteronia (Sapindaceae) is an ancient relict woody genus, and contains just two extant species endemic to Southwestern and Central China. As sharing numerous morphological characters, Dipteronia and Acer have long been considered as sister groups forming the traditional family Aceraceae. However, molecular phylogenetics has generally not resolved the phylogenetic placement of Dipteronia, especially not in its expected position as sister to Acer.

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