Genetic diversity of wild soybean (Glycine soja Sieb. and Zucc.) accessions from South Korea and other countries

Wild soybean (Glycine soja Sieb. and Zucc.) is an important source of genetic variation for introducing useful traits into cultivated soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. Little is known about genetic diversity within South Korean wild soybeans and how they differ genetically from other G. scia lines originating from other regions. Forty-six simple sequence repeat markers covering the 20 soybean linkage groups were used to estimate genetic diversity among 274 wild soybean accessions from South Korea (210) China (34), Japan (25), and eastern Russia (5; and three cultivated checks. Glycine soja populations from South Korea, China, and Japan all had high genetic diversity with indexes of 0.849, 0.818, and 0.804, respectively. Cluster analyses grouped the 274 accessions into three genetic groups. Cluster I and 11 consisted of 85 accessions, with 79 of 85 from Korea, only one from China, and five from Japan. Cluster III contained 192 of the 274 G. soja accessions. Nearly all of the accessions from China and Japan, all from Russia, and 131 of 210 from South Korea were assigned to Group Ill. However, there was no difference between populations for genetic diversity for South Korea and China. Although it is a very small country, South Korea is a major center of diversity for wild soybeans and potentially a source of useful genes not found in other parts of the world.