RAPDs and noncoding chloroplast DNA reveal a single origin of the cultivated Allium fistulosum from A. altaicum (Alliaceae).

The origin of the crop species Allium fistulosum (bunching onion) and its relation to its wild relative A. altaicum were surveyed with a restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of five noncoding cpDNA regions and with a random amplified polymorhic DNA (RAPD) analysis of nuclear DNA. Sixteen accessions of A. altaicum, 14 accessions of A. fistulosum, representing the morphological variability of the species, and five additional outgroup species from Allium section Cepa were included in this study. The RFLP analysis detected 14 phylogenetically informative character transformations, whereas RAPD revealed 126 polymorphic fragments. Generalized parsimony, neighbor-joining analysis of genetic distances, and a principal co-ordinate analysis were able to distinguish the two species, but only RAPD data allowed clarification of the interrelationship of the two taxa. The main results of this investigation were: (1) A. fistulosum is of monophyletic origin, and (2) A. fistulosum originated from an A. altaicum progenitor, making A. altaicum a paraphyletic species. Compared with A. altaicum the cultivated accessions of the bunching onion show less genetic variability, a phenomenon that often occurs in crop species due to the severe genetic bottleneck of domestication. Allium altaicum and A. fistulosum easily hybridize when grown together, and most garden-grown material is of recent hybrid origin.