Abstract
Paris polyphylla var. yunnanensis is one of the original plants used to make the traditional medicine Paridis Rhizoma. Wild individuals have been excessively collected in recent decades, and thus, it has become increasingly endangered. Cultivation is a major method for the conservation and sustainable utilization of its wild resources. In this study, amplified fragment length polymorphism markers were used in the genetic analysis of 15 wild and 17 cultivated populations of P. polyphylla var. yunnanensis. This study revealed that cultivated populations possessed higher genetic diversity than wild ones at the species level (H = 0.2636 vs. 0.2616, respectively). However, most of the genetic variation was found within populations for both of these groups (ΦST = 18.83% vs. 19.39%). In the dendrogram produced using UPGMA, the 32 populations were divided into three groups (I, II, and III). In group II, both wild and cultivated populations were included, but remained in distinct clusters within this group, which showed the significant separation between the cultivated and wild populations. Furthermore, wild populations were also clustered into three subgroups (W‐I, W‐II, and W‐III), with an obvious geographic structure. In contrast, although cultivated populations were similarly placed in three subgroups (C‐I, C‐II, and C‐III), the latter two of these were not separated based on geography. Finally, the wild populations in Guizhou, China (W‐I), possessed higher genetic diversity than those in Yunnan (W‐II and W‐III). As P. polyphylla var. yunnanensis is an endangered medicinal plant, the fact that it showed richer genetic diversity in its wild populations in Guizhou means that these should be regarded as priority areas for protection and used for provenance selection. Moreover, cultivated populations also showed high genetic variation, which might be attributed to them having originated from mixed provenances, indicating that screening for superior provenances should be carried out as soon as possible.
Highlights
More than 80% of world's population relies on plant‐based medicines for their primary healthcare needs, most of which come from wild resources (Vines, 2004)
In preliminary experiments done before this study, both amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and sequences repeats (SSR) markers were adopted to detect genetic diversity; the results revealed that AFLP markers were obviously better than SSR ones in terms of the success rates they achieved and the polymorphism detected with them (Song, Li, Xu, Zhao, & Chen, 2015)
AFLP markers were adopted as a means to explore and compare the genetic diversity and population structure of wild and cultivated populations of P. polyphylla var. yunnanensis
Summary
More than 80% of world's population relies on plant‐based medicines for their primary healthcare needs, most of which come from wild resources (Vines, 2004). Yunnanensis populations would be beneficial to its effective conservation, as well as the breeding of superior provenances for its large‐scale cultivation Since it is an important medicinal plant, ISSR, AFLP, and SSR markers have previously been adopted to investigate the genetic diversity and structure of wild populations of P. polyphylla var. He et al (2007) compared the genetic characteristics of wild and cultivated populations, only six populations were collected from Yunnan Province, and no populations from other parts of the variety's distribution were included. The samples examined in previous studies likely provided relatively poor representations of the variety's distribution, so they could not reveal whether genetic differences existed between wild and cultivated populations of P. polyphylla var. We employed AFLP markers to explore (a) spatial patterns in genetic variation within and among both wild and cultivated populations; (b) genetic differences between the wild and the cultivated populations; and (c) the mixed provenances on which cultivated populations were based
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