Genetic diversity of golden root (Rhodiola rosea L.) in northern Norway based on recently developed SSR markers

Roseroot (Rhodiola rosea L.), an adaptogenic herb, has received increased attention in recent years. The genetic diversity of roseroot was studied with simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, which have not been widely used so far. Plants were collected in Finnmark County, Norway, from 10 habitats. Eight recently developed microsatellite (SSR) markers were used to assess genetic diversity. However, only 4 SSR markers were informative during this study. The primer pairs for these 4 SSR markers produced 20 fragments with an average of 5 putative alleles per locus. Observed heterozygosity was 1.0 at each locus, whereas expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.60 to 0.65. The generated unrooted dendrogram based on genetic distances calculated from the results confirms that genetic diversity exists between the populations; the more distant they are from each other, the higher the genetic difference is.