Genetic diversity and structure of natural populations of Pinus thunbergii in Korea

Thirteen natural populations of Pinus thunbergii were investigated by starch-gel electrophoresis. For 27 loci from 17 enzyme systems, the percentage of polymorphic loci (P; 99% level), the number of alleles per locus (A), the observed (H o ) and expected (H e ) heterozygosities and the effective number of alleles (A e ) were 71.3%, 2.2, 0.214, 0.212 and 1.443, respectively. 13 natural populations of P. thunbergii seemed to be in equilibrium of HARDY-WEINBERG expectation. Of the total variability, more than 95% was within populations. The mean value of NEI'S (1978) unbiased genetic distance (D = 0.008) confirmed that the variation among populations was low. Weak correlation between genetic distance and geographic distance was found. Cluster analysis showed that the populations sampled from the east-coast region, except Samcheok, were distinguished from other populations in the west-coast and south-coast region.