The genetic diversity of cultivated soybean grown in China

Abstract

Cultivated soybean ( Glycine max) is an economically important crop that is grown for its oil and protein products. A better knowledge of its genetic diversity will be valuable for the utilization, conservation, and management of germplasm collections. Using the database of the National Germplasm Evaluation Program of China (NGEPC), we studied the geographical distribution of accessions, the genetic diversity of 15 qualitative and quantitative characters, and the genetic diversity centers of cultivated soybean in China using variation in these 15 traits and genetic diversity indexes (Shannon index). Cultivated soybean is widely distributed throughout China. As an indication of its distribution, a line can be roughly drawn from the Daxinganling mountains in northeastern China to the Qingzang plateaus in southwestern China based on the abundance of accessions and locations of the collections. Of the 22,637 known accessions in China, the 20,570 collected over a vast area between latitudes 18 degrees and 53 degrees N and longitudes 80 degrees and 136 degrees E were used in this study. The Shannon indexes of various morphological traits were calculated. Cultivated soybean accessions were found to exhibit a higher genetic diversity in the area between 34 degrees -41 degrees N and 110 degrees -115 degrees E. On the basis of the geographical distribution of a number of accessions, and their genetic diversity, one genetic diversity center-downstream of the Yellow River Valley-is proposed. Based on these results and on Vavilov's theory on crop origins, one possible diversity center was proposed.

Genetic structure and diversity of cultivated soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) landraces in China

“…In contrast, no one has proposed that the landraces we clustered into SSuM were the Wrst cultivated soybeans originating from wild soybean. Dong et al (2004) found that the diversity at agronomic traits for southern and southeastern landraces was much lower. Our cluster SSuM, which is genetically highly diverse at our SSR loci, is a speciWc subset of landraces from south China, namely summer-planting soybean in the south of the Yangtse River.…”

“…The region with the highest genetic diversity is generally considered as the center of origin of a species (Vavilov 1951;Chang 1989;Dong et al 2004). Among the seven clusters, SSuM had the highest allelic richness and largest number of unique (i.e., cluster-speciWc) alleles, while HSuM had the highest gene diversity.…”

“…The HSuM landraces cultivated in the central and downstream area of the Yellow River valley come from Hebei, Henan, Anhui, Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces. Many studies have hypothesized that the central and downstream part of the Yellow River valley is the centre of origin of cultivated soybean, which is a kind of rain-fed crop (Vavilov 1951;Hymowitz and Newell 1981;Chang 1989;Dong et al 2004;Zhao and Gai 2004). Dong et al (2004) found that the cultivated soybean landraces in this region exhibited higher diversity based on ten quality traits and Wve quantitative traits.…”

“…Since 1981, soybean researchers have studied genetic diversity of cultivars, landraces and annual wild soybeans (Lu et al 1981;Kisha et al 1998;Cui et al 2000;Li and Nelson 2001;Xu et al 2002;Cui et al 2003;Lin et al 2003;Ude et al 2003;Zhu et al 2003;Cui et al 2004a;2004b;Dong et al 2004;Mi et al 2004;Wang et al 2004;Chen and Nelson 2005;Li et al 2005;Luan et al 2005;Piao et al 2005;Xie et al 2005;Zhang et al 2005;Wang et al 2006;. However, all of those studies compared the diversity among pre-deWned populations based on tillage systems, geographical origins, and phenotypes.…”

Analysis of Genetic Diversity of 12 Genotypes of Glycine max by Using RAPD Marker

“…Different kinds of markers were utilized for surveying hereditary variability of soybean genotypes-agronomic, morphological, biochemical attributes and molecular marker polymorphisms (Nelson, 2001;Giancola et al, 2002;Chowdhury et al, 2002;Ude et al, 2003;Dong et al, 2004;Bonato et al, 2006;Yamanaka et al, 2007;Malik et al, 2009;Goyal et al, 2012). All specified marker groups have constraints, however connected together they can give reliable data about analyzed germplasm (Sudaric et al, 2011).…”