Ximena Moncada

TL;DR: A tight genealogical link is demonstrated between paper mulberry populations in South China and North Taiwan, and South Taiwan and Remote Oceania by way of Sulawesi and New Guinea, presenting the first study of a commensal plant species transported to Polynesia whose phylogeographic structure concurs with expectations of the “out of Taiwan” hypothesis of Austronesian expansion.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used non-coding internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of nuclear ribosomal DNA and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) on 79 samples of Broussonetia papyrifera from different islands of Remote Oceania, and South East Asia and East Asia.

TL;DR: Most paper mulberry plants now present in the Pacific appear to be descended from female clones introduced prehistorically, with the presence of male and female plants in Near and Remote Oceania thought to reflect a dual origin.

TL;DR: A simple method is described for the extraction of PCR-amplifiable DNA from small samples of contemporary Polynesian bark-cloth (tapa) using two types of nuclear markers and opens perspectives for the analyses of small fragments derived from ethnographic materials.

TL;DR: The genetic variability of this plant is evaluated in order to determine its potential as a commensal species for studying the mobility and/or migratory movements of the people that carried it and its association with Austronesian migration history.