Pandanus boninensis, endemic to the Ogasawara Islands, Japan, is distributed on both the older Bonin and younger Volcano Islands. In this study, we conducted population genetic analyses of P. boninensis on these islands to examine the population diversity and structure across old and young islands, to assess potential differences in population demography with island age, and to collect any evidence of migration between old and young islands. We found that the genetic diversity of expressed sequence tag (EST)–based microsatellite (SSR) markers, the nucleotide diversity of nuclear DNA sequences, and the haplotype diversity of chloroplast DNA on young islands were lower than those on old islands. Clustering analyses of EST-SSR indicated that populations on old islands were strongly diverged from those on young islands. Approximate Bayesian computation analysis of EST-SSR suggested that population expansion occurred on old islands while population reduction occurred on young islands. We also found evidence of migration among old islands (mostly from south to north), while it appears that there have been very few migration events between old and young islands. These differences could be due to the fact that young islands tend to be geographically isolated and support smaller populations that began a shorter time ago from limited founders. The P. boninensis populations on the Volcano Islands are interesting from an evolutionary perspective as they constitute a classic example of the early stages of progressive colonization on oceanic islands with small effective population sizes and low genetic diversity.

Leaf samples of 944 individuals of Pandanus boninensis were collected from 34 populations from 20 islands of the Mukojima, Chichijima, Hahajima, and Volcano Islands. Genotypes for 944 individuals were determined using 14 EST-SSRs (Pb_0084, Pb_0195, Pb_0400, Pb_0760, Pb_0880, Pb_0979, Pb_1138, Pb_1142, Pb_1425, Pb_1733, Pb_2057, Pb_3598, Pb_3868, and Pb_4444) developed for P. boninensis (Setsuko et al., 2012).