Genetic diversity of the endangered plant Abies ziyuanensis detected by ISSR markers

As a member of Pinaceae,Abies ziyuanensis is an endangered species in China.The genetic diversity of 243 individuals of six A.ziyuanensis populations from Hunan and Guangxi provinces was estimated using inter-simple sequence repeat(ISSR) markers.The eight primers employed produced a total of 108 scorable amplified fragments,of which 84(77.78%) were polymorphic.Genetic diversity analysis showed that Nei's genetic diversity(H_e) was 0.234 4 and Shannon's genetic information index(I) was 0.376 4.The genetic diversity level of six populations was different largely.The percentage of polymorphic loci of six populations changed from 22.22% to 70.37%,and Nei's genetic diversity and Shannon's genetic information index changed between 0.092 0-0.219 5 and 0.134 4—0.339 1,respectively.The levels of genetic diversity of Xianggupeng population and Yinzhulaoshan population were higher than those of the other populations,the level of Shunhuangshan population was the lowest.Coefficient of genetic differentiation(G_st)among six populations was 0.377 7,indicating that natural population was genetically differentiated to a certain extent.Gene flow among A.ziyuanensis was relatively weak(N_m=0.411 9),which might have caused the genetic differentiations among the populations.UPGMA cluster analysis showed that the 243 individuals were clustered into six clusters corresponding to the six populations.