Complete Chloroplast Genomes of Tulipa turkestanica and T. biflora (Liliaceae): Structural Conservation and Repeat Variation in Central Asian Tulips

The genus Tulipa is taxonomically complex and highly diverse in Central Asia, yet genomic resources for many wild species remain limited. We sequenced and assembled the complete chloroplast genomes of Tulipa turkestanica and T. biflora, two morphologically variable species from Uzbekistan, to investigate plastome structure, repeat composition, and phylogenetic relationships. Both genomes exhibited conserved quadripartite organization with nearly identical sizes (152,022–152,025 bp) and each encoding 84 protein-coding genes, reflecting high structural stability within the genus. Comparative analyses revealed strong A/T bias in simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in both species. However, T. turkestanica displayed a higher number and greater diversity of SSR motifs, including species-specific dinucleotide repeats (particularly AT and AG/CT motifs), suggesting differential microsatellite accumulation during evolutionary divergence. Phylogenomic reconstruction based on complete chloroplast genomes provided robust resolution within subgenus Eriostemones, placing T. biflora with T. sogdiana and T. turkestanica with T. buhseana, both with strong bootstrap support (BS = 100). The petD-rpoA intergenic region exhibited the highest nucleotide diversity (π = 0.01625), representing a promising marker for population genetic studies. These genomic resources enhance our understanding of tulip systematics and provide valuable tools for conservation genetics in these threatened wild species.

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