Morphological and Molecular Diversity among Population of Wild Almond (Prunus tenella Batsch.) from Xinjiang, China

Prunus tenella Batsch. (wild Almond) has a scattered distribution in northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. The objective of this research was to evaluate the level and distribution of diversity in five geographical populations of P. tenella by using morphological markers and hypervariable molecular markers such as microsatellites. Fifteen morphological traits and ten nuclear loci were scored for each population. Evidence for differentiation in both sets of traits was found, but patterns of differentiation of morphological traits did not coincide with microsatellite differentiation. There were coupling and relevance to some extent in evaluating genetic diversity with the same experiment sampling by morphological and SSR marker variation, but there were also differences, and the two can complement each other in research. Analysis of both morphological and molecular variation revealed significant genetic variation among populations and among individuals within populations. The relatively high genetic diversity in the populations analyzed indicated that the maintenance of their evolutionary potential is possible if population sizes are maintained or increased.