Genetic diversity analysis of Glehnia littoralis populations,an endangered medicinal plant, based on RAPD molecular markers

Glehnia littoralis, a medical plant species, is increasingly endangered in China. In order to develop conservation strategies for this species, the genetic diversity of 291 G. littoralis samples of 11 populations was assessed using molecular marker RAPD. The result revealed that the 10 selected RAPD primers generated a total of 79 amplified bands, among which 65 bands were polymorphic and the percentage of polymorphic bands were 82.28%. Based on the popgene32 analysis, the effective number of alleles(Ne) was 2.12, Nei's gene diversity(h*) was 0.35, and Shannon's information index(I*) was 0.56. At population level, Ht=0.51,Hs=0.35, the genetic differentiation coefficient(GST) among populations was 0.31 and the value of gene flow(Nm) was 1.10. Results revealed that a high level of genetic variations occurred within and among populations. It was inferred that the endangered status of this species is probably due to the destruction of habitats of the wild populations rather than a loss of the genetic diversity.