Abstract
In the recent years, an important renewal of apricot cultivars is taking place worldwide with the introduction of a large number of new releases, which are replacing traditional and local cultivars in many situations. To study the current genetic diversity, a group of 202 apricot accessions, including landraces and releases from breeding programs in several countries, has been characterized using 13 microsatellite markers. The diversity parameters showed higher diversity in modern releases than in landraces, but also suggested a loss of diversity associated with recent breeding. Two main clusters according to the pedigree origin of the accessions were clearly differentiated in the phylogenetic analysis based on Nei’s genetic distance. The first group comprised mostly European and North American traditional cultivars, and the second group included the majority of recent and commercial releases from breeding programs. Further population analyses showed the same clustering trend on the distribution of individuals and clusters, confirming the results obtained in the molecular phylogenetic analysis. These results provide a sight of the erosion and the decrease of the genetic diversity in the currently grown apricot and highlight the importance of preserve traditional cultivars and local germplasm to assure genetic resources for further breeding.
Highlights
Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) is a diploid fruit tree species of the Rosaceae family
Ten of the 13 microsatellite markers resulted polymorphic in the analysis of the 202 accessions (Table 1), but no amplification patterns were obtained with three loci (UDP96001, ssrPaCITA12 and ssrPaCITA19) (Table 2)
In order to evaluate the genetic diversity, different parameters were compared between the landraces and the releases from breeding programs
Summary
Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) is a diploid fruit tree species of the Rosaceae family. The European cultivated apricots diverged from the wild populations of Northern Central Asia and resulted in four differentiated groups: Mediterranean countries, Continental Europe, North-America and North-Africa. Breeding programs from several countries have developed a number of new commercial cultivars focused on common objectives: self-compatibility [12,13], resistance to Plum Pox Virus (PPV), fruit quality, and extension of the ripening period [14]. The release of these new cultivars has led to the displacement of local cultivars in many countries resulting in genetic erosion of apricot diversity [15]. In order to fill this gap, a group of 202 apricot accessions, including landraces and releases from breeding programs in several countries were characterized using SSRs to (i) evaluate the current genetic diversity, (ii) establish the similarity relationships between cultivars, and (iii) estimate the levels of population structure in the main cultivars currently grown
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