Analysis of Genetic Diversity and Structure Pattern of Indigofera Pseudotinctoria in Karst Habitats of the Wushan Mountains Using AFLP Markers

Abstract

Indigofera pseudotinctoria Mats is an agronomically and economically important perennial legume shrub with a high forage yield, protein content and strong adaptability, which is subject to natural habitat fragmentation and serious human disturbance. Until now, our knowledge of the genetic relationships and intraspecific genetic diversity for its wild collections is still poor, especially at small spatial scales. Here amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technology was employed for analysis of genetic diversity, differentiation, and structure of 364 genotypes of I. pseudotinctoria from 15 natural locations in Wushan Montain, a highly structured mountain with typical karst landforms in Southwest China. We also tested whether eco-climate factors has affected genetic structure by correlating genetic diversity with habitat features. A total of 515 distinctly scoreable bands were generated, and 324 of them were polymorphic. The polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.694 to 0.890 with an average of 0.789 per primer pair. On species level, Nei’s gene diversity (Hj), the Bayesian genetic diversity index (HB) and the Shannon information index (I) were 0.2465, 0.2363 and 0.3772, respectively. The high differentiation among all sampling sites was detected (FST = 0.2217, GST = 0.1746, G’ST = 0.2060, θB = 0.1844), and instead, gene flow among accessions (Nm = 1.1819) was restricted. The population genetic structure resolved by the UPGMA tree, principal coordinate analysis, and Bayesian-based cluster analyses irrefutably grouped all accessions into two distinct clusters, i.e., lowland and highland groups. The population genetic structure resolved by the UPGMA tree, principal coordinate analysis, and Bayesian-based cluster analyses irrefutably grouped all accessions into two distinct clusters, i.e., lowland and highland groups. This structure pattern may indicate joint effects by the neutral evolution and natural selection. Restricted Nm was observed across all accessions, and genetic barriers were detected between adjacent accessions due to specifically geographical landform.

Local adaptation and demographic history of vulnerable conifer Cephalotaxus oliveri in southern China

“…Therefore, geographical barriers of the mountain systems limit the gene flow between eastern populations and other populations of C. oliveri. Similar results have been found in the studies of Actinidia chinensis (Li et al, 2010), Castanea mollissima (Liu et al, 2013), and Indigofera pseudotinctoria (Fan et al, 2017), which suggested that these mountain systems acted as barriers and caused genetic isolation. Previous studies have identified the Wumeng Mountains as an obvious geographical barrier, which can promote genetic differentiation among populations of other species (Gong et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2011).…”

Genetic diversity and its conservation implications ofVitex rotundifolia(Lamiaceae) populations in East Asia

“…It is essential to study the morphological variation, genetic diversity, and population structure to provide basic information on plant conservation (Feng, Wang & Gong, 2014; Fan et al, 2017). Climate change, the rapid growth of the human population, and economic development all contribute to the deterioration of V. rotundifolia’s habitat, reducing the number of individuals in some populations.…”

An Assessment of the Malaysian Oil Palm Breeding Populations Using Aflp Markers

“…Diversity of an intended crop can be investigated by both, phenotypic traits and DNA-based methods such as Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP), Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP), microsatellites and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) (Bhandari et al, 2017). AFLP has been applied for genetic diversity studies in a wide range of plant species including teak (Vaishnaw et al, 2015), orchardgrass (Zhang et al, 2018), potato (Bryan et al, 2017), legume shrub (Fan et al, 2017), winged bean (Mohanty et al, 2019), blackberry (Garrido et al, 2020), Jatropha (Avendaño et al, 2015) and Brassica oleracea (El-Esawi et al, 2016). The main advantage of AFLP markers is that several loci can be assayed simultaneously, where the technique is amenable to automation and more importantly shows high stability and reproducibility (Thaipong et al, 2017;Todd et al, 2011) In this study, the genetic variability of 67 oil palm breeding populations in Malaysia was estimated by employing eight AFLP primer combinations.…”