On the identity of a Centaurea population on Procida Island, Italy: Centaurea corensis rediscovered

Abstract

The discovery on the Island Procida (Gulf of Naples, off the Italian west coast) of a Centaurea population similar to C. corensis, a narrow-range Sardinian endemic hitherto known only from one single locality in Sardinia, is presented here. The identification of the two populations as C. corensis is confirmed by morphological comparison and morphometric analysis, chromosome counts and nuclear ribosomal DNA sequence data. A recent origin of the species through polyploidization is hypothesized. Finally, the possibility that recent anthropogenic dispersal may account for the disjunction is discussed.

Keywords:

• Anthropogenic dispersal
• Mediterranean
• polyploidization
• Sardinian flora
• species delimitation

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to R. Granitto, Caserta, for introducing the first author to the Island of Procida, rendering possible the discovery of the new Centaurea population and subsequently the entire work presented here. The authors are grateful to G. Becca for chromosome counts from Sardinian material and to S. Pisanu for helping in multivariate analysis. R. Filigheddu, T. Marcussen, A.S. Meseguer, A. Susanna and two anonymous reviewers made useful comments on the manuscript, while P.J. de Lange made a critical revision of the second version of the manuscript and reviewed the language. A. Bertolli, I. Boršić, G. Mameli, S. Pisanu, F. Prosser, G. Terrosu and R. Vilatersana are acknowledged for their help in collecting samples on the field.

Additional information

Funding

The authors thank the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Projects CGL2007-60781/BOS and CGL2010-18631) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Ajuts a Grups de Recerca Consolidats 2009/SGR/00439) for financial support. A. Hilpold benefited from a pre-doctoral grant of the JAE program of the CSIC. This study was also supported by the Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, LR 7/2007 – PO Sardegna FSE 2007–2013, with the grant number CRP2_474 for N. Garcia-Jacas and E. Farris.