GENETIC DIVERSITY IN LINGONBERRY (ERICACEAE) REVEALED BY RAPD ANALYSIS

Lingonberry Vaccinium vitis-idaea grows in boreal and subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere.
Berries are commonly picked from wild-growing plants in natural populations and used for processing as juice and jam.
Lingonberry has been domesticated in recent decades and today it is sometimes cultivated in commercial plantations.
At Balsgård a breeding programme has been undertaken with evaluation and selection of superior lingonberry plants raised from seeds from berries picked in the wild.
RAPD markers were used to assess the relationships between 15 lingonberry populations assembled from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Russia, Japan and Canada.
Mean within-population diversity was 0.206 when estimated with the Lynch and Milligan index, which is in agreement with a mixed mating system reported for lingonberry.
When estimated with the Shannon’s index, mean within-population diversity was 0.431, which is quite similar to values reported in non-clonal plants.
A geographic grouping of populations was observed in an MDS plot and a significant correlation between geographic and genetic distances was observed when the whole plant material was analysed as well as when the 13 populations of subsp. vitis-idaea were analysed.
In contrast, there was no significant correlation when the analysis was reduced to the 6 Swedish populations.

XI Eucarpia Symposium on Fruit Breeding and Genetics

L. Garkava-Gustavsson

Vaccinium vitis-idaea, genetic relatedness, genetic distance, isolation-by-distance

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.663.110