Abstract
(1) Background and objectives: Cretan chestnut belongs to sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) and has been historically associated with the lifestyle of rural communities with great economic importance. However, chestnut genetic resources in Crete have rarely been studied and assessed, while chestnuts are threatened by several anthropogenic factors. This study assessed the genetic variability of the Cretan sweet chestnut using 59 trees corresponding to the four best-known chestnut cultivars (Strovliani, Rogdiani, Koutsakera and Katharokastania). (2) Materials and Methods: The trees were evaluated using seven simple sequence repeat markers (SSRs): three nSSRs and four EST-SSRs. (3) Results: Genomic SSR results revealed notable genetic diversity in terms of expected heterozygosity, level of polymorphism and effective number of alleles. Moreover, in the four chestnut cultivars, twenty-two unique genotypes were identified, deeming each cultivar to be in fact a multiclonal variety. Genetic differentiation among cultivars was relatively low, though highly significant. Four different groups of synonymies were found: two homonymy groups in Katharokastania and Strovliani, six in Rogdiani and eight in Koutsakera. The cluster analysis and PCoA results reveal two main clusters, one corresponding to the Rogdiani cultivar and the other to Katharokastania, while the other two could not be assigned to a particular group. (4) Conclusions: The null hypothesis of single-clone genotype-to-cultivar correspondence was tested and could not be accepted.
Highlights
Originating in the Caucasus and Asia Minor, where it was first domesticated and spread throughout southern Europe, sweet chestnut, Castanea sativa Mill., is the only native species of the Castanea genus in Europe [1]
This study reports the use of nSSR and EST-simple sequence repeat markers (SSRs) markers for the identification of chestnut cultivars present in Crete
The results obtained with both nSSR and EST-SSR markers showed high levels of diversity for the Cretan chestnut cultivars, confirming the results obtained in previous studies conducted in European chestnut populations [9,12]
Summary
Originating in the Caucasus and Asia Minor, where it was first domesticated and spread throughout southern Europe, sweet (or European) chestnut, Castanea sativa Mill., is the only native species of the Castanea genus in Europe [1]. During the Middle Ages, sweet chestnut was considered the “mountain cereal”, and today it occupies three climatic subregions, growing from sea level up to 1800 m over a wide range of climatic conditions [2,3]. Chestnut trees have been distributed widely throughout mainly southern Europe, forming high-density forests in France and Italy, indicating the importance of this tree economically and environmentally [5]. Like many European forest species, chestnut has notable potential in reducing pollution and climate change effects [6]. The potential multi-use value of chestnut in the past is still valid today and new uses have proven to be economically important
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