Genetic diversity of Jatropha curcas (Euphorbiaceae) collected from Southern Yunnan, detected by inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR).

The genetic diversity of 158 individuals from eight semi-wild populations from Yunnan Province was estimated using ISSR method (8 primers). The results revealed an extraordinarily high level of genetic diversity (at species level, percentage of polymorphic loci PPB=91.04%, effective number of alleles Ne=1.5244, Nei′s (1973) gene diversity He=0.3070, and Shannon′s information index Ho=0.4618; at population level, PPB=55.04%, Ne=1.3826, Nei′s (1973) gene diversity He=0.2171, and Shannon′s information index Ho=0.3178). The level of genetic differentiation between populations is lower than that among populations. The low level of genetic differentiation among populations was detected, based on Nei′s genetic diversity analysis (29.44%), and AMOVA (36.50%). There is no associations between geographical distance and genetic identity. We suggest that Jatropha curcas of Yunnan Province might not be introduced from the same place.