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Genetic structure and relationships within and between cultivated and wild sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) in Kenya as revealed by microsatellite markers

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Abstract

Understanding the extent and partitioning of diversity within and among crop landraces and their wild/weedy relatives constitutes the first step in conserving and unlocking their genetic potential. This study aimed to characterize the genetic structure and relationships within and between cultivated and wild sorghum at country scale in Kenya, and to elucidate some of the underlying evolutionary mechanisms. We analyzed at total of 439 individuals comprising 329 cultivated and 110 wild sorghums using 24 microsatellite markers. We observed a total of 295 alleles across all loci and individuals, with 257 different alleles being detected in the cultivated sorghum gene pool and 238 alleles in the wild sorghum gene pool. We found that the wild sorghum gene pool harbored significantly more genetic diversity than its domesticated counterpart, a reflection that domestication of sorghum was accompanied by a genetic bottleneck. Overall, our study found close genetic proximity between cultivated sorghum and its wild progenitor, with the extent of crop-wild divergence varying among cultivation regions. The observed genetic proximity may have arisen primarily due to historical and/or contemporary gene flow between the two congeners, with differences in farmers’ practices explaining inter-regional gene flow differences. This suggests that deployment of transgenic sorghum in Kenya may lead to escape of transgenes into wild-weedy sorghum relatives. In both cultivated and wild sorghum, genetic diversity was found to be structured more along geographical level than agro-climatic level. This indicated that gene flow and genetic drift contributed to shaping the contemporary genetic structure in the two congeners. Spatial autocorrelation analysis revealed a strong spatial genetic structure in both cultivated and wild sorghums at the country scale, which could be explained by medium- to long-distance seed movement.

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Acknowledgments

This study formed part of the project, “Environmental risk assessment for the introduction of genetically modified sorghum in Mali and Kenya” funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Biotechnology and Biodiversity Interface (BBI) Program. We are deeply indebted to the late Dr. Fabrice Sagnard (Principle Investigator), who offered exemplary leadership and immense scientific contribution to the entire project. We acknowledge Caroline Mwongera, Charles Marangu and Bernard Rono who participated in collections as well as farmers from various sorghum growing areas of Kenya and the National Genebank of Kenya for providing the seed samples used in this study.

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  1. E. Mutegi

    Present address: Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University, 318 W. 12th Ave, Columbus, OH, 43210-1293, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), National Genebank, P.O. Box 30148, Nairobi, Kenya

    E. Mutegi

  2. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT-Nairobi), P.O. Box 39063-00623, Nairobi, Kenya

    E. Mutegi, F. Sagnard, S. de Villiers & D. Kiambi

  3. CIRAD, UMR DAP, 34398, Montpellier, France

    F. Sagnard & M. Deu

  4. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), P.O. Box 1041, Village Market, Nairobi, 00621, Kenya

    K. Semagn

  5. Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Corrensstrasse 3, 06466, Gatersleben, Germany

    M. Muraya

  6. KARI-Embu Research Station, P.O. Box 27, Embu, Kenya

    B. Kanyenji

  7. Department of Plant Sciences, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, South Africa

    L. Herselman & M. Labuschagne

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  1. E. Mutegi
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Mutegi, E., Sagnard, F., Semagn, K. et al. Genetic structure and relationships within and between cultivated and wild sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) in Kenya as revealed by microsatellite markers. Theor Appl Genet 122, 989–1004 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-010-1504-5

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