Higher genetic diversity and gene flow in wild populations of Miscanthus sinensis in southwest China

Abstract

Miscanthus sinensis , a C 4 perennial grass, is widely distributed in most parts of China. M. sinensis has been selected as a candidate for bioenergy resources, owing to its high biomass potential and good adaptability on marginal lands. In this study, we detected the genetic diversity in wild populations of M. sinensis in southwest China. The results showed the percentage of polymorphic bands is 93.2%, the average Nei's gene diversity in population was 0.3870 and mean Shannon index was 0.5589. The mean of total gene diversity ( H T ) was 0.3831 ± 0.0216, while the allelic diversity within populations ( H S ) and among populations ( D ST ) was 0.3127 ± 0.0161 and 0.0704, respectively. The genetic differentiation coefficient ( G ST ) was 0.1838, and the gene flow ( N m ) was 1.110. The wild populations of M. sinensis have high genetic diversity within each population than among populations. As M. sinensis has a large phenotypic variation in many traits that are important for biomass yield, the best yielding genotypes could be bred into hybrids with low input and high output bioenergy crops. ► Sorghum EST-SSR primers showed high efficiency for amplifying the Miscanthus sinensis genome. ► The wild populations of M. sinensis have high level genetic diversity. ► The genetic diversity within populations was higher than among populations. ► There was high frequency of gene flow between different populations.