DNA typing and genetic relations among European hazelnut (Corylus avellanaL.) cultivars using microsatellite markers

Abstract

In this work, 78 hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) cultivars from various germplasm repositories were studied at 16 simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci in order to identify the genotypes and investigate their genetic relations. Polymorphism at SSR loci was evaluated on the basis of number of alleles (mean: 9.4), expected heterozygosity (mean: 0.78), and power of discrimination (mean: 0.91). Several synonyms reported in the literature were confirmed, and new cases of synonymy were identified. The parentage of North American cultivars 'Butler', 'Ennis', and 'Royal', the French selection 'Fercoril-Corabel', and 'Impératrice Eugenie' was investigated on the basis of the alleles present at 16 loci and analysis at 8 additional loci. A dendrogram generated from cluster analysis using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean grouped cultivars according to their pedigrees or geographical origins. There was an evident differentiation of the northern European cultivars from the southern European ones and from the Turkish cultivars. The latter clustered close to but separate from the Italian and Spanish clusters. It is very likely that exchanges of cultivars occurred between the central and western Mediterranean basin as a result of human migration and trade. A database containing the SSR profiles of the most important hazelnut cultivars will be useful for identification of cultivars and synonyms, legal protection, and parentage analysis.

A multidisciplinary approach to enhance the conservation and use of hazelnut Corylus avellana L. genetic resources

“…Furthermore, additional cultivars were found to have the same profile of 'Siciliana': 'Nocchione', 'Barrettona' (Latium), 'Locale di Piazza Armerina' (Sicily), 'Iannusa racinante' (Sicily), 'Avellana speciale' (unknown origin), confirming the results obtained by Boccacci et al (2006). The accessions 'Istrska okrogloplodna' (Croatia) and 'Lambertski beli' (Slovenia) presented the same profile of the cultivars 'Payrone' (unknown origin, syn.…”

“…Cultivars originating from controlled crosses and synonyms were excluded, but those that had been found to descend from spontaneous crosses were included. True-to-type identity of the accessions was verified by Boccacci et al (2005Boccacci et al ( , 2006Boccacci et al ( , 2008 and Ghanbari et al (2005) using the following 16 SSR loci: CaT-A114, CaT-B107, CaT-B501, CaT-B502, CaT-B503, CaT-B504, CaT-B505, CaT-B507, CaT-B508, CaT-B509, CaT-B511, CaT-C001 and CaT-C504 , CaC-A102, CaC-B020 and CaC-B028 .…”

“…As Visser and Engels (2003) pointed out, a proper documentation of genebank accessions is necessary to favor efficient and effective use of germplasm. Currently, only in three European collections a fingerprinting using molecular markers was performed (Boccacci et al 2006. Prospects in marginal areas are therefore crucial for preserving and recovering the maximum genetic diversity, mitigating the effect of genetic erosion (Bacchetta and Di Giovanni 2013).…”

“…Essentially no work has been done to investigate population structure, genetic diversity, and possible genetic erosion (loss of genetic resources) of wild hazelnut. Nearly all efforts have been focused on cultivated forms largely to better understand their origin, to fingerprint germplasm accessions, and to evaluate genetic diversity Botta 2009, 2010;Boccacci et al 2006Boccacci et al , 2008Gökirmak et al 2009;Gürcan et al 2010). Recently, a first on-farm exploration was conducted on local ecotypes and on wild accessions in northern Spain (Asturias) by Ferreira et al (2010) and Campa et al (2011).…”

Broad-scale genetic homogeneity in natural populations of common hazel (Corylus avellana) in Ireland

“…Whilst there have been several studies on C. avellana, the present study is the first to look at natural populations of hazel using high-resolution, codominant nuclear microsatellite markers, in contrast with those which have used low resolution and/or dominant markers (allozymes and amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs)) or those which have focused on the genetics of cultivated varieties. Two allozyme studies, one of which examined populations from central to northern Europe (Persson et al 2004) and another which used samples mainly not only from Germany but also from Italy and Hungary (Leinemann et al 2013), found similar levels of genetic diversity, measured by both number of alleles (A) and expected heterozygosity (H E ) Although it is not possible to draw meaningful comparisons between levels of diversity observed in the present study with those calculated from allozymes in natural populations, it is possible to contrast these levels with those observed in cultivated varieties and landraces based on microsatellites, which were lower and ranged from H E = 0.71 to H E = 0.78 (Boccacci et al 2006;Gökirmak et al 2009;Boccacci and Botta 2010;Gürcan et al 2010b;Campa et al 2011;Boccacci et al 2013). In contrast, all but one sample analysed here had an H E >0.8 (Table 1).…”