GENETIC DIVERSITY AND RELATIONSHIPS OF 48 CULTIVARS OF GERBERA JAMESONII ADLAM IN CHINA REVEALED BY MICROSATELLITE MARKERS

Gerbera (Gerbera jamesonii) is one of the most important floricultural crops for the cut flower trade and ranks the fifth among commercial cut flowers in the world. However, the genetic background of many G. jamesonii cultivars is unclear, which limits further breeding programs. In this study, we developed 8 microsatellite markers for G. jamesoniiby the magnetic beads enrichment method and thenused them to analyze genetic diversity and relationships of 48 cultivars in China. On average, 5.3 alleles (2 - 11) per marker were amplified for these 48 cultivars. The heterozygosity (Ho) ranged from 0.021 to 0.835 for the 8 markers. UPGMA based clustering analysis showed that these cultivars could cluster into four major groups. Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) showed highly similar results to the UPGMA-based clustering. According to the UPGMA clustering, cultivars in Group I was mainly composed of yellow and pink tubular petals; the trend in Group II was weak, but cultivars with the same colour often cluster together; Group III was composed of only one cultivar with green tubular flower; only three cultivars with yellow tubular petals in Group IV cluster together. Present study revealed relatively high genetic diversity in cultivars of G. jamesonii in China and genetic relationships of these cultivars provide useful information for further breeding.