Genetic diversity within and among Southern African provenances of Uapaca kirkiana müell. Årg using morphological and AFLP markers

Domestication of Uapaca kirkiana Müell. Arg is a high priority for improving rural livelihoods of smallholder farmers in southern and eastern Africa. Domestication efforts require knowledge of ecological adaptive traits and intra-specific variation. Morphological traits and amplified fragment length polymorphic (AFLP) markers were used to assess genetic variation in twelve provenances of U. kirkiana collected from five countries in southern and eastern Africa. Assessment of tree morphological traits showedsignificant differences (p< 0.05) between provenances where Zimbabwean and Zambian provenances grew much faster than those from Tanzania and Malawi (except Phalombe). Mean Nei’s (H) genetic diversity of AFLP showed high diversity within the provenances H= 0.181 to 0.321 with mean of 0.256. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed that most genetic variation (90.8 %) resided within provenances, while only 8.2 % was variation among provenances. There was no geographical pattern of variation in growth and morphological traits among the seed sources. Chipata provenance from Zambia was the most diverse while Mapanzure from Zimbabwe was the least diverse but more superior in height growth and earliest in fruiting. The pattern of genetic diversity in U. kirkiana indicates existence of genetic drift and high gene flow between provenances suggesting that regional collections and conservationstrategies should consider differences by focussing on the main range of the species.Keywords: AFLP - Conservation-Domestication- Genetic diversity- Provenance- Uapaca kirkiana- UPGM