Abundant genetic diversity of the wild rice Zizania latifolia in central China revealed by microsatellites

Abstract

Wild rice Zizania latifolia is a perennial emergent aquatic plant widely distributed across China. Wild populations of Z. latifolia are important to aquatic ecosystems and are valuable genetic resources for breeding. However, they have been faced with significant habitat losses in recent decades. For 10 nuclear microsatellites, high levels of genetic diversity (HE = 0.572–0.636) were found across seven surveyed populations from central China. The main factors responsible for that were its long life history and predominant outcrossing reproductive system. Low genetic differentiation among populations was found based on Wright's FST = 0.098. Similarly, AMOVA analysis showed only 7.73% of the total molecular variation was attributed to inter‐population differentiation. The weak population structure of Z. latifolia could be due to high gene flow mediated by water or birds (Nm = 2.30, M = 2.18). Importantly, most populations exhibited mutation‐drift disequilibrium, suggesting a recent population decline. Based on the results, wild populations of Z. latifolia are expected to lose genetic diversity and increase genetic structure in future generations. Therefore, conservation management is urgently needed to maintain the genetic resources of Z. latifolia.

Genetic variation and bidirectional gene flow in the riparian plant Miscanthus lutarioriparius, across its endemic range: implications for adaptive potential

“…For a species that is endemic in wetlands of the Yangtze River, M. lutarioriparius exhibited a higher level of genetic variation across its distribution range (H E = 0.682-0.786; A r = 4.74-8.06; Tables 1 and S1) compared to Myricaria laxiflora and Zizania latifolia within the same habitat and distributing range (Liu et al, 2006;Chen et al, 2012). However, the genetic diversity was comparable with the riparian pioneer tree species Populus nigra along the Drôme River (France), which had similar dispersal mechanisms (Imbert & Lef evre, 2003).…”

Landscape-Scale Genetic Structure of Wild Rice Zizania latifolia: The Roles of Rivers, Mountains and Fragmentation

“…But this study and Fan et al (2016) both showed that Z. latifolia in the plain has exhibited inbreeding. On the contrary, Z. latifolia populations from the Yangtze River showed predominant outcrossing reproductive system (F IS = −0.200-0.019; Chen et al, 2012a). The different results could be ascribed to the habitat types: most Z. latifolia populations in the Sanjiang Plain occur in the sides of ponds and streams, which easily lead to mating events among close relatives or intra-clones; while Z. latifolia from the Yangtze River grows along the littorals of lakes and forms large populations (Chen et al, 2012a), and this makes the populations stand a good chance to receive more migrant pollen and act as outcrossing.…”

“…In the present study, Z. latifolia from the Sanjiang Plain appeared to possess low intra-population microsatellite variation (n a = 2.3, H E = 0.328) compared to Z. texana from Texas in America (n a = 11.7, H E = 0.662, Richards et al, 2007; n a = 4.4-6.3, H E = 0.53-0.65, Wilson et al, 2017) and Z. latifolia from the Yangtze River in central China (n a = 5.0, H E = 0.610; Chen et al, 2012a). A lower level of genetic variation (H E = 0.156 based on SRAP markers) was found in nine Z. latifolia populations in the same area (Fan et al, 2016).…”

“…Understanding genetic diversity of the valuable species would help effectively implement conservation practices for the species and rationally utilize the genetic resources (Yan et al, 2016). Abundant genetic variations with weak population structure were previously reported using ten nuclear microsatellites markers in Z. latifolia from lakes of the Middle-lower Yangtze Plain, a potamo-lacustrine system in central China (Chen et al, 2012a). In another report, nine Z. latifolia populations from the Sanjiang Plain in northeastern China were shown a low level of genetic diversity with evident population structure based on SRAP markers (Fan et al, 2016), and the results inferred that mountains and fragmentation might contribute greatly to the genetic patterns of Z. latifolia in the Sanjiang Plain.…”

Genetic diversity and population structure of the endangered basal angiospermBrasenia schreberi(Cabombaceae) in China

“…Compared to other molecular markers, simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers have numerous merits, including co-dominance, high reproducibility, a relatively high level of polymorphisms, and are plentiful in the genome ( Liao et al, 2013 ). SSR markers have been successfully applied to estimate the genetic diversity of other aquatic plants such as Sparganium emersum ( Pollux et al, 2007 ), Zostera marina ( Reusch, Stam & Olsen, 2000 ; Talbot et al, 2016 ), Sagittaria natans ( Yue et al, 2011 ), Zizania latifolia ( Chen et al, 2012 , 2017 ), Nymphoides peltata ( Liao et al, 2013 ), Isoetes hypsophila ( Li et al, 2013 ), Ruppia cirrhosa ( Martínez-Garrido, González-Wangüemert & Serrão, 2014 ), Nuphar submersa ( Shiga et al, 2017 ), and Ottelia acuminata ( Zhai, Yin & Yang, 2018 ). Here, we used 12 microsatellite loci to detect and estimate the genetic variation of B. schreberi in China.…”