Assessment of genetic diversity of Typha angustifolia in the development of cattail stands

Typha angustifolia has ecological characteristics of clonal growth similar to Phragmites australis. The plant spreads byclonal growth and seed dispersal. In this study, for the three stands which have different settlement age at the Baksiljiwetland in Korea, genetic diversity was estimated by random amplification of polymorphic DNA analysis to evaluate thechange in genetic diversity of T. angustifolia during stand development in the same population. Stand (ST) 1 was the oldestand ST 4 was the youngest. ST 5 was in a small ditch out of the Baksilji. Although the ST 1, ST 2, and ST 3 did not differsignificantly in vegetational or physical environment, the genetic diversity estimated according to Nei’s gene diversity(h) and the Shannon index (i) increased in the order of ST 1 < ST 2 < ST 3 contrary to formative age. The genetic diversityof ST 4 was much higher than that of the other three stands. ST 4 has similar abiotic environmental conditions withslight T. angustifolia dominance, and seems to be in the early establishment stage. ST 5 differed from the other stands invegetational and soil environments, which can result in stressful cattail conditions. Even though the ST 5 stand was notyounger than the ST 4 stand, ST 5 showed the highest genetic diversity. Our results indicate that after early settlement ofthe T. angustifolia population, genetic diversity within the species decreased over time and that the decreasing pattern ofgenetic diversity within T. angustifolia stands is not likely to occur under stressful conditions.