Genetic diversity in six natural populations of Taxus cuspidata from Baekdu trail and Jeju Island in South Korea analyzed by RAPD-DNA markers

Abstract

RAPD markers were used to analyze the genetic diversity among six populations of Taxus cuspidata collected from natural forests along the Baekdu trail in South Korea. Six of 10-mer primers were selected based on primary screening from group OPA01–OPA20 as single primers for PCR amplification. The primers OPA11 and OPA16 gave the fewest and the highest number of bands, respectively. A total of 93 bands were scored and 44 (47.31%) were polymorphic with polymorphism level ranging from 42.86% to 52.94% depending on the individual's origin and a mean of 48.11%. Shannon's information indices ranged from 0.368 (Deog yu Mt) to 1.342 (Jiri Mt), while the genetic diversity ranged from −0.141 (Deog yu Mt) to 0.328 (Jiri Mt and So baek Mt). Nei's genetic distance (D) varied from 0.182 (Ga chil Mt/Deog yu Mt) to 1.099 (Ga chil Mt/Tae baek Mt and So baek Mt/Tae baek Mt), which suggested a high level of genetic differentiation among pairs of populations. A dendogram revealed that the six populations were separated into two clusters. One cluster included two of the northern populations (So baek Mt and Ga chil Mt), one of the southern population (Deog yu Mt), and the other cluster included two of the southern populations (Jiri Mt and Halla Mt) and one from northern areas of South Korea (Tae baek Mt).