“…In 2000, molecular markers such as RAPD were first applied in Lycium species for the validation of the genetic diversity of L. barbarum (Cheng et al, 2000), while RAPD was also validated for its feasibility to distinguish close species of Lycium (Zhang et al, 2001). To date, simple sequence repeat (SSR), conserved ortholog set II (COSII), characterized amplified region (SCAR), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), restriction site−associated DNA sequencing (RADseq), internal transcribed spacer (ITS), sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP), intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR), and random amplified, microsatellite polymorphism (RAMP)-PCR markers have been applied in genetic diversity, population structure, morphological variation, phylogenetic inference, traceability, and cultivar/species identification and discrimination (Zhang et al, 2001(Zhang et al, , 2018Yin et al, 2005;Sze et al, 2008;Chung et al, 2009;Kwon et al, 2009;Levin et al, 2009;Zhao et al, 2010;Balasubramani et al, 2011;Liu et al, 2012Liu et al, , 2020bTripathi, 2013;Xin et al, 2013;Chen and Zhong, 2014;Wang et al, 2015a;Chen J. et al, 2017;McCulloch et al, 2020;Jung et al, 2021). SSR markers can be used for the detection of genetic polymorphisms of species, calculation of genetic relationships (genetic distance) between varieties, identification of cultivars, and even construction of genetic maps and QTL mapping with sufficient SSR markers Essid et al, 2015;Ibrahim et al, 2016;Thammina et al, 2017;Portis et al, 2018b).…”