Genetic Diversity of Chinese Bayberry (Myrica rubra Sieb. et Zucc.) Accessions Revealed by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism

Abstract

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) was used to analyze genetic diversity of 100 accessions of Chinese bayberry (Myrica rubra Sieb. et Zucc.), one of the widely cultivated fruit tree crops in southern China. Six E-NN/M-NNN primer combinations were selected and a total of 236 bands were obtained, of which 177 were polymorphic (75.01%). An unweighted pair-group method of the arithmetic averages (UPGMA) was used to analyze the genetic relationships. The Dice's similarity coefficient among the Chinese bayberry accessions ranged from 0.75 to 1.00 and was 0.49 between Chinese bayberry and wax myrtle (M. cerifera L.). The 100 accessions of Chinese bayberry were clustered into two groups and seven subgroups. Subgrouping of Chinese bayberry was not related to the sex of the plant and color or size of the ripe fruit, but to some extent the region where the accession originated. However, the accessions from the same region did not necessarily belong to the same group or subgroup, which suggested the presence of extensive gene flow among different regions. Furthermore, close relationships between some morphologically similar accessions were found.