Genetic admixture in the population of wild apple (Malus sieversii) from the Tien Shan Mountains, Kazakhstan

Young Ho Ha, Seung Hwan Oh, Soo Rang Lee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

There is growing attention given to gene flow between crops and the wild relatives as global landscapes have been rapidly converted into agricultural farm fields over the past century. Crop-to-wild introgression may advance the extinction risks of rare plants through demographic swamping and/or genetic swamping. Malus sieversii, the progenitor of the apple, is exclusively distributed along the Tien Shan mountains. Habitat fragmentation and hybridization between M. sieversii and the cultivated apples have been proposed to be the causal mechanism of the accelerated extinction risk. We examined the genetic diversity pattern of eleven wild and domesticated apple populations and assessed the gene flow between M. sieversii and the cultivated apples in Kazakhstan using thirteen nuclear microsatellite loci. On average, apple populations harbored fairly high within-population diversity, whereas population divergences were very low suggesting likely influence of human-mediated dispersal. Assignment results showed a split pattern between the cultivated and wild apples and frequent admixture among the apple populations. Coupled with the inflated contemporary migration rates, the admixture pattern might be the signature of increased human intervention within the recent past. Our study highlighted the prevalent crop to wild gene flow of apples occurring in Kazakhstan, proposing an accelerated risk of genetic swamping.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalGenes
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2021

Keywords

  • Genetic diversity
  • Genetic swamping
  • Hybridization
  • Malus sieversii
  • SSR
  • Wild apple

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