Genetic diversity and relationship of clonal tea (Camellia sinensis) cultivars in China as revealed by SSR markers

Tea plant [Camelliasinensis (L.) O.Kuntze)] is one of the most popular non-alcoholic beverage crops in the world today. In recent years, many clonal tea cultivars have been developed and widely planted to replace the diverse traditional tea populations. In this article, we study the relationships between classifications based on simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and on morphological traits for 185 tea plant cultivars. Results show that the genetic diversity index (H) is between 0.229 and 0.803, and the mean value is 0.543; the observed heterozygosity (Ho) ranges from 0.103 to 0.683, with an average of 0.340, while the genetic identity varies from 0.267 to 0.984. Based on tea-making properties, the genetic diversity in the “black-green tea” group is much higher than in the “Oolong tea” group. Based on morphological traits, cluster analysis classifies the 185 cultivars into three groups, “group I,” “group II” and “group III.” Most cultivars are related based on the geographical origin and their genetic backgrounds.