High genetic diversity and structural differentiation in fragmented populations of wild barley

(Hordeum brevisubulatum)

 

Wanli Guo^{1 2*}, Nazim Hussain¹, Zahra Jabeen³, RUI WU², Jiang Wang¹ AND Bao Liu^2*

 

¹ College of Life Science, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Xiasha Campus, Hangzhou, 310018, China

² Key Laboratory of Molecular Epigenetics of MOE, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China

³ Department of Biosciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan

* Corresponding author’s e-mail: gwl1016@aliyun.comand baoliu@nenu.edu.cn

 

Abstract

 

Hordeum brevisubulatum(Trin.) Link., a tolerant ofdiverse abiotic stresses,is a wild barley,distributed in Songnen Plain of China. However, many populations of this wild barley are fragmented and/ordispeared during the last few decadesmainly due to anthropogeniceffects. The decrease in fragmented populations may affect the genetic diversity and structure of the populations, and in turn their survival potential.Five fragmented and four unfragmented populations (FP and UFP) in Songnen Plain were analyzed using two types of DNA marker namely, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and sequence-specific amplified polymorphism (SSAP). The genetic diversities (0.162_AFLP and 0.239_SSAP)  of five FPs [SB1, SB2, DBS, QZJ and QG]were higher than those (0.126_AFLP and 0.20_SSAP) of four UFPs [SS1, SS2, FY1 and FY2], although the later one (the UFPs) had large population size. Moreover, the 5FPsalso showed higher population genetic differentiation (G_ST, 0.197_AFLP and 0.192_SSAP) comparing with 4 UFPs (0.086_AFLP and 0.108_SSAP). The habitat fragmentation could improve the genetic variability, and lead to heterogeneous impact on different genome regions in H. brevisubulatum.

 

Key words: Hordeum brevisubulatum,Habitat fragmentation,Genetic diversity,Population structure, AFLP, SSAP.