Genetic diversity and structure of Iranian wild apples (Malus orientalis Uglitzk) distributed in Iran using SSR markers

Caucasian apple (Malus orientalis Uglitzk) is one of the forest-garden species of Iran that is distributed in Hyrcanian and Zagros vegetation areas in Iran. In this study, the diversity and genetic structure of Caucasian apples were investigated using 26 microsatellite markers. The results showed that the observed heterozygosity was between 0.46 - 0.83 and the allelic richness was between 1.54 - 1.84. In more than 80% of habitats, heterozygosity was expected to be within the expected range. Our founding suggest that between Iranian population wild apples have not experienced a genetic bottleneck in the recent result.The range of inoculation coefficient for Caucasian apples in Hyrcanian forest was between -0.84 and 0.81 and for Zagros forest was between -0.2 and 0.81. The mean gene flow is 0.24 and 0.69 for Hyrcanian forest and Zagros forest, respectively. Based on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium only populations from Lorestan province and Dorak region from Golestan province were deviated. The study of the results of genetic structure also indicates the formation of three completely different structures for Caucasian apple populations in Iran. based on the analysis of principal components analysis, Hyrcanian and Zagros regions showed a completely different structure from each other.