Abstract
Tea plant [Camellia sinensis (L.) O.Kuntze)] is one of the most popular non-alcoholic beverage crops in the world today. In recent years, many clonal tea cultivars have been developed and widely planted to replace the diverse traditional tea populations. In this article, we study the relationships between classifications based on simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and on morphological traits for 185 tea plant cultivars. Results show that the genetic diversity index (H) is between 0.229 and 0.803, and the mean value is 0.543; the observed heterozygosity (H o) ranges from 0.103 to 0.683, with an average of 0.340, while the genetic identity varies from 0.267 to 0.984. Based on tea-making properties, the genetic diversity in the “black-green tea” group is much higher than in the “Oolong tea” group. Based on morphological traits, cluster analysis classifies the 185 cultivars into three groups, “group I,” “group II” and “group III.” Most cultivars are related based on the geographical origin and their genetic backgrounds.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the earmarked fund for the Modern Agro-industry Technology Research System of China, the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China (30800884, 30972403), Jiangsu Science and Technology Program of China (BE2009313-1, BE2011319), and the Suzhou Science and Technology Program of China (SZGD201067, WNZ1002).
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Fang, W., Cheng, H., Duan, Y. et al. Genetic diversity and relationship of clonal tea (Camellia sinensis) cultivars in China as revealed by SSR markers. Plant Syst Evol 298, 469–483 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-011-0559-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-011-0559-3