Clonal Structure Of Fargesia Qinlingensis Populations Infferred From SSR Fingerprints In Foping National Nature Reserve

The clonal diversity and clonal structure of a dense Fargesia qinlingensis population were analyzed by simple sequence repeat(SSR) fingerprints at Foping National Nature Reserve. The research described how genetic structure of Fargesia qinlingensis was established in small scale and provided some data basis of sampling interval distance of genetic diversity, flowering traits, ecological environment conservation in high mountains and the protection of panda.The result showed that 7 selected SSR primers generated a total of 79 valid loci, of which, 77 were polymorphism. We generated leaf samples from 142 ramets which include 107 clones in our plot. The largest single clone may occur over a distance of about 5 m. The clonal diversity was slightly higher than that of the average of other clonal plants. The proportion of distinguishable genotypes(PD), Simpson’s index of diversity(D), average size of genotypes(Nc) and Fager’s evenness(E) being 0.7535, 0.9680, 1.3271 and 0.5109, respectively.Also, our results showed a high genetic diversity that the Shannon’s index(I), Nei’s gene diversity(H) were 0.2263 and 0.1323, respectively. The larger genetic variation was higher within the plots(70.49%) by using analysis of molecular variance(AMOVA), which was consistent with the result of the coefficient gene differentiation(Gst=0.1418).Fargesia Qinlingensis exhibited a phalanx growth strategy at the ramet level, that is, clones were juxtaposed and the ramets belonging to the same clone were closely aggregated. The analysis of unweighted pair-group method analysis(UPGMA) demonstrated no significantly cluster between clones, but clones in the same plot were always classified into the same class. However, ramets that belong to the same clone were divided into the same class. Spatial autocorrelation analysis showed that the autocorrelation coefficient was significantly positive at distance of 44 m. The largest spatial auto-correlation coefficient was 0.626 at 4m, which means the remets within 4m were most likely to belong to the same clone and sampling size of 4m could reflect clearer clonal structure than that of 5m. The intercept represented the average minimum length of irregular clone was 52.280 m.Under the 8 distence level, the mean intercept was 54.664 m, indicating the average minimum length of irregular clone and we can make it as the sample size when sampling for genetic diversity wthin a population. Mantel test analysis proved a significant correlation between genetic distance and geography distance.In addition, the clonal diversity, genetic diversity and clonal structure were mainly affected by initial seeding recruitment, heterogeneity of microenvironment, especially sampling strategy in our study.