Sea-level and climate changes drive lineage diversification in the imperiled Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula J. Ellis, Droseraceae)

Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is an insectivorous plant in the monotypic genus Dionaea, endemic to the Southeastern United States, and found in a small geographic range in North and South Carolina. Its unique morphology and natural history have intrigued biologists for centuries, yet the evolution of populations has not been adequately characterized. Population decline, driven primarily by disruptive land conversion, fire suppression, and illegal harvesting/poaching underscores the urgency of defining the genetic diversity in the present population to guide species conservation. We applied a genome-wide SNP dataset to analyze admixture and population structure and used coalescent modeling to trace the ancestry and migration of geographically distinct population clusters. Our population dynamics model supports four lineages, with the North Cape Fear Arch lineage as the ancestor of all lineages and two genetically distinct Sandhills lineages derived from the South Cape Fear Arch lineage independently at ~13 Ma and ~3 Ma, respectively, during peak climate optima periods and maximal sea level rise. Severe population decline events occurred among all lineages, with two ancient instant bottleneck population decline events in Sandhills lineages and two recent ones in the two Cape Fear Arch lineages, which contributed to the current genetic structure. Shorter peduncle lengths in Sandhills populations correspond with suspected local adaptation to Sandhills habitats.