Assessment of genetic diversity in Chinese eared pheasant using fluorescent-AFLP markers

The eared pheasant consists of four species: white eared pheasant (Crossoptilon crossoptilon), Tibetan eared pheasant (Crossoptilon harmani), blue eared pheasant (Crossoptilon auritum), and brown eared pheasant (Crossoptilon mantchuricum). These species are found only in China, and are also on the list of the world's threatened species. In this paper, 74 individuals from the four eared pheasant species were assessed for population genetic diversity by means of fluorescent-AFLP markers. A total of 429 AFLP peaks were amplified by 11 pairs of fluorescent EcoRI/TaqI primer combinations. Out of all markers, 329 AFLPs were polymorphic. Each primer combination produced in reactions from 19 to 72 fragments and the polymorphic peaks percentage ranged from 53.33% to 86.11% with an average of 74.36% polymorphic bands. Genetic distance between species and genetic diversity within species were evaluated using Jaccard's similarity coefficients (SC) and the corresponding dendrogram. It was found that there was a moderate genetic distance between the four species (SC = 0.674-0.832). Brown eared pheasant was genetically closely related to blue eared pheasant (SC = 0.832), while white eared pheasant was more closely related to Tibetan eared pheasant (SC = 0.812). Genetic diversity was lower in brown eared pheasant (SC = 0.913) and Tibetan eared pheasant (SC = 0.903) than in white eared pheasant (SC = 0.832) and blue eared pheasant (SC = 0.853).