High genetic diversity and structural differentiation in fragmented populations of wild barley (Hordeum brevisubulatum)

Hordeum brevisubulatum(trin.) link.,a tolerant ofdiverse abiotic stresses,is a wild barley,distributed in songnen plain of china. however,many populations of this wild barley are fragmented and/ordispeared during the last few decadesmainly due to anthropogeniceffects. the decrease in fragmented populations may affect the genetic diversity and structure of the populations,and in turn their survival potential.five fragmented and four unfragmented populations (fp and ufp) in songnen plain were analyzed using two types of dna marker namely,amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp) and sequence-specific amplified polymorphism (ssap). the genetic diversities (0.162aflp and 0.239ssap) of five fps [sb1,sb2,dbs,qzj and qg]were higher than those (0.126aflp and 0.20ssap) of four ufps [ss1,ss2,fy1 and fy2],although the later one (the ufps) had large population size. moreover,the 5fpsalso showed higher population genetic differentiation (gst,0.197aflp and 0.192ssap) comparing with 4 ufps (0.086aflp and 0.108ssap). the habitat fragmentation could improve the genetic variability,and lead to heterogeneous impact on different genome regions in h. brevisubulatum. © 2016,pakistan botanical society. all rights reserved.