Genetic diversity of Chinese natural bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) germplasm using ISSR markers

Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L.) is an important warm-season turfgrass. Although it is widely distributed in China, studies on the genetic variation and relationship among the large-scale indigenous bermudagrass were relatively insufficient, especially at molecular level. The purpose of this study was to assess the molecular variation and relationship among one commercial cultivar ‘Tift3’ and 95 wild bermudagrass accessions collected from 11 provinces in China by ISSR marker technique. The results indicated that 29 ISSR primers generated a total of 248 bands among which 242 (97.6%) were polymorphic bands. The genetic similarity coefficients among accessions ranged from 0.51 to 0.97 with an average of 0.74. All accessions could be clustered into 11 groups with UPGMA method. Accessions from the same or adjacent regions generally were clustered into the same group or subgroups. A few accessions, however, were greatly different from the majority of all accessions. The results suggested that ISSR marker is an effective tool for the study of genetic variation in Chinese natural bermudagrass.

Research highlights▶ ISSR marker is an effective tool for assessing genetic variation in bermudagrass. There is abundant genetic variation within Chinese wild bermudagrass germplasm. The accessions from similar or adjacent regions often had higher genetic similarity.