Species divergence and diversity in buckwheat landraces collected from the western Himalayan region of Pakistan

摘要

Attaining food security in subsistence farming system of Himalayan region require novel and original approaches, including improvement of traditional crops, like buckwheat. Little is known about the diversity in local landraces of buckwheat species Fagopyrum esculentum (common type) and F. tataricum (Tatary type). The present study was thus designed to assess the diversity and divergence in buckwheat germplasm from western Himalayan region of Pakistan. A set of 36 buckwheat landraces collected from the Himalayan ranges of Pakistan were characterized using 20 microsatellite markers, along with the two reference Chinese genotypes. The microsatellite data was analyzed to infer on the divergence between species and diversity in geographically spaced buckwheat landraces. A clear divergence was found between the two buckwheat species (F ST value = 0.331), suggesting their cross incompatibility. The overall diversity was very high, with a genotypic diversity of 1.00 in common type and that of 0.983 in the Tatary type. Buckwheat germplasm showed variable number of alleles per locus, while the dissimilarity in the detected and predicted heterozygosity exposed nonexistence of some inbreeding or clonality in the two species. The higher diversity and information on divergence between species must enable a better crop breeding strategy to select buckwheat genotypes with more production in a subsistence farming system along with further conservation strategy.