Genetic diversity and genetic structure of Acer monspessulanum L. across Zagros forests of Iran using molecular markers

Abstract

Acer monspessulanum L. is an important tree species found in the temperate Zagros forests of Iran. Despite its importance, the long-term persistence of its small and fragmented populations is jeopardised by genetic erosion and hence, monitoring its genetic resource and variability is practically required for providing conservation measures of the species germplasm in Zagros woodland ecosystem. The present study aimed to provide the first data on genetic diversity and genetic differentiation pattern of 19 natural populations comprising 240 individuals of A. monspessulanum across its growing area in Zagros forests using three molecular tools including inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR), start codon targeted (SCoT), and simple sequence repeat (SSR). In total, ISSR and SCoT primers generated a total of 141 and 121 clear and scorable bands for analysis with the polymorphism rate of 90.50 and 90.02% and a mean of 10.85 and 11 fragments per marker, respectively. In addition, 73 alleles were achieved using 10 polymorphic SSR loci from the studied accessions with 100% polymorphism, ranging between 5 and 10 alleles per locus. Average percentage of polymorphic alleles per population for ISSR, SCoT, and SSR data was 84.02%, 83%, and 100%, respectively, and generally, Nei's gene diversity (H) and Shannon's index of diversity (I) values for all populations demonstrated moderate to high levels of genetic diversity (H=0.267-0.707; I=0.38-1.38). The AMOVA results of the three marker systems attributed higher genetic variation to individuals within in each population than among populations. Furthermore, overall GST value for all populations detected the moderate to high levels of genetic differentiation, indicating a limited gene flow occurrence among the populations. STRUCTURE analysis (K=5) clustered the populations into four to five distinct groups, in accordance with geographical distances. These results could represent an important contribution for effective germplasm characterization and could be eventually used in in situ or ex situ conservation of A. monspessulanum genetic resources.