ALLOZYME VARIATION IN NATURAL-POPULATIONS OF PICEA-GLEHNII IN HOKKAIDO, JAPAN

Current-year needles from individual trees were used to study the gene tic diversity in 10 natural populations of Picea glehnu (Masters) in H okkaido, Japan, by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Data from 12 po lymorphic loci encoding 33 alleles identified by nine enzyme systems w ere analysed. Mean number of alleles per locus, percentage polymorphic loci and observed and expected heterozygosities were 1.98, 75 per cen t, 0.08 and 0.088, respectively. These genetic parameters varied consi derably among populations. Diversity among the populations was small w ith a mean F-ST of 0.022 and genetic distance of 0.0017. However, a ch i(2)-test showed that allele frequencies were different (P < 0.05) amo ng the populations at 10 of the 12 loci; cluster and canonical discrim inant analyses indicated that some of the populations were very differ ent from others; and correlation analyses revealed significant. relati onships between some of the allele frequencies and longitude, latitude and altitude. Results suggest that genetic variation in P. glehnii is both geographically clinal and population-specific.