1. ¹Department of Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
2. ²Lab of Plant Systematic Evolution and Biodiversity, College of life Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China

Correspondence: X-Y Chen, Department of Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Zhongshan Road (N.) 3663, Shanghai 200062, PR China. E-mail: xychen@des.ecnu.edu.cn

³Current address: Department of Plant Biology, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.

Received 15 September 2004; Accepted 23 September 2004; Published online 10 November 2004.

Abstract

Ginkgo biloba, a famous living fossil, is the sole survivor of the genus Ginkgo. To make inferences about the glacial refugia that harbored G. biloba, we examined the genetic structure of eight potential refugial populations and plantations using chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) with eight size variants in the trnK1-trnK2 fragment. The data consist of haplotypes from 158 trees collected from eight localities. The majority of the cpDNA haplotypes are restricted to minor portions of the geographical range. Our results suggest that refugia of G. biloba were located in southwestern China. This area is a current biodiversity hotspot of global importance, and may have been protected from the extremes of climatic fluctuations during the Pleistocene. The Ginkgos on West Tianmu Mountain, which were previously considered to be wild by many researchers, may, instead, have been introduced by Buddhist monks.