DIVERSITY OF CHLOROPLAST DNA SSRS IN WILD AND CULTIVATED C. MOLLISSIMA: EVIDENCE OF CULTIVATED C. MOLLISSIMA ORIGIN

Abstract

We surveyed the variation in chloroplast simple sequence repeats (cpSSRs) of 60 wild accessions and 68 cultivars collected from wild populations and regional cultivar groups of Castanea mollissima. Four cpSSRs presented 12 variations in the tested plants. All the variants were observed in wild C. mollissima, whereas in the cultivars, only eight variants appeared. Eight haplotypes were combined from the variants of the four cpSSRs, all of which were represented in the wild populations, but only two (A and B) were found in the cultivar group. Analysis of the variants and the haplotypes of the four cpSSRs indicated higher genetic diversity in wild C. mollissima compared with the cultivars. 60.7% of the accessions of the wild Hanzhong population grown on the south slopes of the Tsingling mountains were represented by two accessions out of eight belonging to the wild Guande population of C. mollissima, and presented only two out of eight haplotypes, namely A and B. Thus, our results suggest that the haplotypes of the current cultivars might have originated from wild C. mollissima growing on the south slopes of the Tsingling mountains.