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Genetic diversity of Southeastern Nigerien date palms reveals a secondary structure within Western populations

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Abstract

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is mainly cultivated for its edible fruit and is of great socio-economic importance for the populations of arid zones. Analysis of the date palm genetic diversity in the Old World had revealed a strong genetic structure with the existence of two gene pools, one Eastern comprising Asia and Djibouti, and one Western, consisting of North African accessions. So far, mainly date palm populations from countries within the Maghreb and the Middle East were characterized, but no information from the Sahel was included. Here, we present the genetic diversity of date palms from Southeastern Niger. The DNA of 113 date palm accessions were analyzed and compared with a database containing the genetic information of 248 accessions from the Old World. The diversity generated from microsatellite markers was compared to that of the same loci of both the Eastern and Western genetic pools. Our results show that date palms from Southeastern Niger constitute a unique group with a high level of genetic diversity. Moreover, even though this group is included in the Western genetic pool, it shows a specific originality which differentiates it from other Western populations. It also shows one of the lowest admixture levels of the Western pool. Global analysis showed a secondary genetic structure within the Western pool highlighting a new genetic group located in Southeastern Niger that distinguishes itself from the North African group.

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Acknowledgments

This article is dedicated to our colleague and friend Dr. Jean-Christophe Pintaud who passed away prematurely. This work was granted by the IFS (International Foundation of Science, D / 5695-1, 2014), CIRAD (France, AI N°1 2014; 2015 and 2016) for the field work, the French Embassy in Niger, and the Government of Niger. This study was made possible by grant NPRP-EP X-014-4-001 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation), ANR Phoenix, and ISEM. We thank Mr. Garkoua Sayédi, the hydraulic Magariah director; Col Barmou Hamza, the director of Goure environment; Mr. Elh Idi, the village chief of Killakina; and Mr. Mamane Moussa, the regional coordinator of NGO Karkara Zinder for their logistical support. We also thank M. Hassan Shabana, Ali Zouba, Karim Kadri, Ahmed Othmani, Claire Newton, Jean-Frederic Terral, and Sarah Ivorra for providing the plant material.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRD, UMR DIADE-F2F, Centre IRD, 911 avenue Agropolis, 34394, Montpellier, France

    Oumarou Zango, Emira Cherif, Nathalie Chabrillange & Frédérique Aberlenc

  2. CIRAD, UMR AMAP, Boulevard de la Lironde, 34398, Montpellier, France

    Oumarou Zango & Hervé Rey

  3. Faculty of Sciences and Technologies, Abdou Moumouni University, 10662, Niamey, BP, Niger

    Oumarou Zango & Yacoubou Bakasso

  4. Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire, Immunologie et Biotechnologie, Université de Tunis El Manar, Campus universitaire, 2092, El Manar, Tunisia

    Salwa Zehdi-Azouzi

  5. Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier, UMR 5554, Equipe Dynamique de la biodiversité, anthropo-écologie, Place Eugene Bataillon, CC065, 34095, Montpellier cedex 05, France

    Muriel Gros-Balthazard

  6. University of Agriculture, Institute of Horticultural Sciences, Faisalabad, 38040, Pakistan

    Summar Abbas Naqvi

  7. Date Palm Development Research Unit, Plant Tissue Culture Laboratory, P.O. Box 81908, Al Ain, UAE

    Alain Lemansour

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  1. Oumarou Zango
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  2. Emira Cherif
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  3. Nathalie Chabrillange
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  4. Salwa Zehdi-Azouzi
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  5. Muriel Gros-Balthazard
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  9. Yacoubou Bakasso
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  10. Frédérique Aberlenc
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Correspondence to Oumarou Zango.

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The list of accession numbers is in the Supplementary Material (Table S3).

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Zango, O., Cherif, E., Chabrillange, N. et al. Genetic diversity of Southeastern Nigerien date palms reveals a secondary structure within Western populations. Tree Genetics & Genomes 13, 75 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-017-1150-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-017-1150-z

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