Sequencing conserved region of endangered species Celtis caucasica Willd

Abstract

The rarest species of relict ironwood C. caucasica Willd. is naturally occurred on the Ile-Alatau Mountains but very little is known about genetic diversity and distribution and size of its populations in Kazakhstan. In during the sampling expedition were found two additional plant populations in Dzungarian and Kyrgyz Alatau Ranges. The objective of this work was targeted towards sequencing ITS region of C. caucasica and compare the obtained nucleotide sequence with available data on NCBI GeneBank for confident species identification. The identity of C. caucasica sequence and available C. australis and C. bungeana sequences was 93.87% and less. It could be associated with absence sequences producing significant alignments with the studied ironwood sequence and important deposited sequences of GenBank lacking Latin binominals is from environmental samples. Clarifying taxonomical status species and subspecies is difficult by morphological data and molecular markers should be used to correct identifying an endangered species of C. caucasica growing in the east-southern and the south regions of Kazakhstan and providing direction to the conservation management of the plant.