Abstract

Inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) analysis was used to evaluate the genetic variation of Piper spp. from Hainan, China. 247 polymorphic bands out of a total of 248 (99.60%) were generated from 74 individual plants of Piper spp. The overall level of genetic diversity among Piper spp. in Hainan was high, with the mean Shannon information index (I) of 0.2843 and the mean Nei’s genetic diversity (H) of 0.1904. The genetic similarity (GS) coefficient ranged from 0.548 to 0.976 within 74 individual plants of Piper spp., and the within-species genetic distance ranged from 0.104 to 0.28. Unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) dendrogram showed that P. kadsura is the most divergent and the most distant of the 11 species, and that P. hainanense and P. bonii, are closely related as well asP. sarmentosum and P. betle. The diversity analysis unambiguously distinguished all Piper spp. The high levels of genetic diversity in Jianfengling and Diaoluoshan demonstrate that conservation of wild resources of Piper in these two localities is more effective than that in Limushan, Wuzhishan, Xinglong Tropical Botanical Garden and Danzhou.

Key words: Black pepper, Piper, genetic variation, molecular marker, inter-simple sequence repeat.