ARS | Publication request: Genetic diversity and relationships assessed by SSRs in the USDA Rice Germplasm Collection

Submitted to: American Society of Agronomy Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract
Publication Acceptance Date: June 3, 2008
Publication Date: October 5, 2008
Citation: Agrama, H., Yan, W., Fjellstrom, R.G., Jia, M.H., McClung, A.M. 2008. Genetic diversity and relationships assessed by SSRs in the USDA Rice Germplasm Collection. American Society of Agronomy Abstracts. p. 552-5.

Technical Abstract: Understanding a germplasm collection is essential for mining special genes and further development of the collection. The USDA rice (Oryza sativa L.) collection contains about 20,000 accessions from 116 countries. These diverse originations indicate a variety of different edaphic and climatic environments for these genotypes to adapt. These ecotypes can be differentiated using SSR markers, and the resulting dendrograms can be used to reconstruct the similarities between genotypes, and patterns of introduction and spread of rice varieties around the world. A core collection with 1,970 entries is proved to be representative of the collection with 88% certainty, and has been genotyped with 50 SSR markers. With the data, the genetic diversity and relationship among world-wide rice accessions were assessed. Information on the diversity could be used to identify genetic gap for collection development and the relationship could be used to fill the gap with germplasm from certain area instead of a specific country, depending on diplomatic circumstances.