Genetic diversity and population genetic structure of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) in Iran using AFLP markers

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is one of the oldest known edible fruits. It is native to Iran and spread from Iran to other areas. In this study amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) was used to detect intra- and inter-population genetic diversity of pomegranate. A group of 67 accessions belonged to 4 populations from Iran was studied using eight primer combinations. A total of 221 scorable bands were amplified, of which, 118 (54.13%) were polymorphic. Resolving power (Rp) ranged from 5.70 to 9.21, and the average of polymorphism information content (PIC) per primer pair was 0.40. According to Nei's gene diversity and allelic statistics, Isfahan population had a highest genetic diversity (H = 0.3646, I = 0.5327, N_e = 1.6467). Coefficient of gene differentiation between populations (GST) was 0.124, indicated that mainly proportion of genetic variation (87.6%), was within populations and the remaining (12.4%) of the variation was among populations that, also supported by analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA). The gene flow (Nm) varied from 0.969 to 10.404 between pair-wise populations and was 3.504 among all of the populations. The Jaccard similarity coefficient between individuals ranged from 0.26 to 0.88. The UPGMA dendrogram clustered all 67 accessions into 6 groups. In some cases accessions from same region were grouped together but in most cases, there was gene exchange. To study the genetic relationships among populations, a principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) based on Nei's genetic distances was performed. Results of this study showed that AFLP marker can be a useful tool for investigating the genetic diversity of pomegranate genotypes.