Genetic Differentiation of Dendrocalamus Latiflorus Populations from South China Revealed by RAPD Marker

The genetic differentiation of eleven sympodial bamboo (Dendrocalamus latiflorus) populations naturally distributed in south China was investigated by using RAPD markers. A total of 250 arbitrary nucleotide primers were used for primer screening, of which 23 primers exhibited their consistent banding patterns. Totally, 139 bands were generated and 75 of them (accounting for 53.96%) are polymorphic within and among all the tested populations. This indicates that sympodial bamboo exhibit high genetic diversity among populations. The length of DNA fragments generated were scored from 200 to 2 000 bp and four bands per primer on average. Genetic difference was found among the eleven populations, which highly amounted to 44%, and the genetic distance ranged from 0.038 7 to 0.437 4.The eleven populations might be divided into four groups by cluster analysis (UPGMA) based on Nei's unbiased genetic distance. The cluster analysis results showed that the genetic relationship of populations from Guangxi and Guizhou are relatively close to Guangdong populations, as well as Mile population of Yunnan might be the farthest to other populations in genetic relationship.