Estimation of Outcrossing Rates in Biodiesel Species Pongamia pinnata Based on AFLP and Microsatellite Markers

Abstract

Outcrossing rates in biodiesel species Pongamia pinnata were estimated using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and microsatellite markers. Five AFLP primer combinations and eight pairs of microsatellite primers were used for fingerprinting of 55 open pollinated progenies derived from five mother trees. The multilocus out-crossing rate was quite high with AFLP (0.917; SD = 0.103) and comparatively low with microsatellite markers (0.748; SD = 0.127). The multilocus out-crossing rate was higher than single locus out-crossing rate in case of both marker systems (tm − ts = 0.203; SD = 0.090) which implies that biparental inbreeding occurred at significant levels. The estimated F was higher than the expected which also indicated towards high inbreeding in the progeny population analyzed. This is the first study on estimation of outcrossing rates using any kind of molecular marker systems in Pongamia. We expect an increasing use of such high throughput PCR-based technologies in mating-system studies in various other tree species.