Genetic diversity and structure of Dendrocalamus hamiltonii natural metapopulation: a commercially important bamboo species of northeast Himalayas

Abstract

Dendrocalamus hamiltonii is a commercially important bamboo species of India, experiencing population depletion due to heavy extraction from natural forests. Nuclear simple sequence repeats (nSSRs) were used to study the genetic diversity and population genetic structure of 19 natural stands of D. hamiltonii distributed across the northeast Himalayas. A total of 68 nSSR primer pairs of D. latiflorus and Bambusa arundinacea have been tested in D. hamiltonii for their transferability, out of which 17 primers showing positive and polymorphic amplification were used for genotyping. A total of 130 alleles were generated in 535 individuals of all the populations using selected primer pairs. The marker analysis indicated that D. hamiltonii populations have maintained a low level of genetic diversity (h = 0.175, I = 0.291) in northeastern region of India. Despite a large proportion of the genetic variation (83.47%) confined within the populations, a moderate level of genetic differentiation (F ST = 0.165) was observed among the populations. The clustering pattern obtained in UPGMA and STRU CTU RE analysis revealed that most of the populations were clustered in accordance with their geographical distribution. Two populations (DH03 and DH13) exhibiting significant genetic admixture were identified and recommended for in situ conservation. In addition, six highly diverse populations were also suggested for conservation in different geographical area under study. The study has revealed useful nSSR markers for D. hamiltonii, which were lacking earlier and the information generated herein is of paramount importance in devising programs for species conservation and genetic improvement.

Genetic diversity, population structure, and gene flow analysis of lowland bamboo [Oxytenanthera abyssinica (A. Rich.) Munro] in Ethiopia

“…On the other hand, F SC = 0.10486, F ST = 0.38949 and F CT = 0.31797 in seven groups and F ST = 0.36354 without grouping were recorded from O. abyssinica populations of Ethiopia. F SC = 0.132, F ST = 0.187, and F CT = 0.062 in four groups and F ST = 0.165 without grouping were reported from D. hamiltonii (Meena et al., 2019). Higher population divergence or differentiation was observed in D. hamiltonii ( F ST = 0.165), and very great or significant genetic differentiation with F ST = 0.36354 was recorded in O. abyssinica populations.…”

“…ISSR markers analysis for the genetic relationship study of five native and economical important bamboos (Amom et al., 2020), for the genetic diversity and structure of Dendrocalamus hamiltonii (Meena et al., 2019) and for the population genetic study of Melocanna baccifera (Roxb.) Kurz (Nilkanta et al, 2017), revealed that most of the populations were clustered in accordance with their geographical distribution and location.…”

“…The H = 0.0418 ± 0.0456 and I = 0.0624 ± 0.0651 were recorded in Chinese giant bamboo ( Dendrocalamus giganteus ) population with low genetic diversity and high genetic differentiation (Tian et al., 2012). The H (0.175 ± 0.152) and I (0.291 ± 0.209) were observed in the Dendrocalamus hamiltonii population of the northeast Himalayas with low genetic diversity and a moderate level of genetic differentiation (Meena, Bhandhari, Barhwal, & Ginwal, 2019). High genetic variation at the species level with H = 0.1939 and I = 0.3218 were recorded in Melocanna baccifera (Roxb.)…”

Usage of microsatellite markers for characterization of polyploids: a case study in reference to hexaploid bamboo species

“…The problem of multiple alleles was encountered in our study performed for population genetic analysis in an Indian bamboo species, Dendrocalamus hamiltonii (Meena et al, 2019). This species belongs to the lineage palaeotropical woody bamboos whose genome is allohexaploid (2n = 6x = 72) containing genomes of different ancestral lineages (Thakur et al, 2015;Guo et al, 2019).…”

“…While in group 2, a population of Assam was separated from other Assamese populations and unexpectedly clustered with the population of Meghalaya. The group wise clustering behavior of each population has been explained in our published article (Meena et al, 2019). Structure analysis was carried out to identify the ancestral gene pools and determination of inferred ancestry of individual populations in each defined cluster.…”