Genetic characterization of endemic Liquidambar orientalis populations in Muğla province based on ISSR polymorphism

Abstract

Liquidambar orientalis, a relict endemic species, is distributed in the south-west of Turkey. It is accepted that the species in the Altıngiace family has two varieties, L. orientalis Mill. var. integriloba Fiori and L. orientalis Mill. var. orientalis. The natural spread areas of the species have been decreasing since the early 1900s. This poses a great threat to the future and genetic diversity of the species. For this reason, it is very important to determine the genetic diversity of this species and to initiate conservation programs. In this study, the genetic diversity of a total of 190 individuals in ten populations was examined with ten polymorphic ISSR primers. Data analysis was performed using POPGENE ver. 1.32 and GenAlEx 6.503 softwares, and the phylogenetic relationship between populations was revealed using TreeView X software. According to the results of the analysis, a total of 271 loci were identified. For the ten populations, the rate of polymorphic loci ranged from 21.03–34.69%. The mean number of observed alleles (Na) and mean number of effective alleles (Ne) were found as 1.98 ± 0.13 and 1.47 ± 0.37, respectively. Nei's genetic diversity values ​​(h) ranged from 0.07 ± 0.15 to 0.12 ± 0.18. According to the results of Molecular Analysis of Variance (AMOVA) and POPGENE ver. 1.32 analysis, it was determined that the main contribution to the genetic variance originated from among the populations. In addition, the gene flow level (NM) was found to be low with a value of 0.27 per generation.