Analysis of genetic diversity of Lactarius hatsudake in south China

Lactarius hatsudake is a type of ectomycorrhizal fungus that significantly influences the growth of pine trees. It is widely prevalent in Asian countries and has a high economic value. Artificial cultivation of this fungus has not been achieved as yet; therefore, excessive manual harvesting may cause serious damages to the site of its production. In this study, we analyzed 41 samples of L. hatsudake from south China using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences. By comparing the differences among ITS sequences to identify the haplotype diversity within each population, the relationships among local populations, the relationship between the level of genetic differentiation and geographical separation, and the contributions of local and regional geographical separations to the overall ITS haplotype variation were analyzed. Genetic analysis indicates that ITS sequences obtained from these 41 L. hatsudake samples could be identified as 18 haplotypes, of which 13 haplotypes were contained in only a single sample, whereas the remaining sequence types all were contained in two or more samples. The most common sequence type, haplotype 6, was found in 16 samples and was distributed across nearly every region. The Mantel test demonstrated that there is no significant linear relationship between geographical distance and the F(ST) value of genetic difference. Results of this research illustrates that there exists a certain degree of genetic intermixing among natural populations of L. hatsudake. From the group genetic analysis, it appears that there exists genetic differentiation of lower frequencies in natural populations of L. hatsudake; however, the linear relationship between the degree of genetic differentiation and geographical distance is not distinctly apparent.