ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Breeding
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1635602
This article is part of the Research TopicTrends and Perspectives for the Use of Crop Wild Relatives in Crop Breeding - Volume IIView all 3 articles
Exploring the Diversity of Three Northern Atlantic Sea Beet Populations
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Agronomy and Plant Breeding II, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
- 2KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA, Einbeck, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Sea beet [Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima (L.) Arcang.] populations exhibit high genetic diversity and possess valuable traits that could enhance resilience, disease resistance, and tolerance to abiotic stress. In contrast, the genetic variation in the sugar beet breeding gene pool is limited. Our objectives were to examine sea beet population diversity using high-density marker data and substantial sample sizes within a population simultaneously. Their genetic diversity and population structure were investigated to evaluate their potential for direct mapping of traits with association mapping. Within this study, a total of 1,363 genotypes across three Northern Atlantic sea beet populations from Denmark, France, and Ireland were analyzed using 16,201 SNP markers. The findings reveal genetic variation among the populations, with the Irish population exhibiting the highest genetic diversity and pronounced population structure. The Danish population showed low genetic diversity and minimal population structure, while the French population displayed intermediate levels of both, genetic diversity and population structure. Based on its high genetic diversity, the Irish population appears to have to most potential for use to directly map traits by association mapping, provided that the challenges posed by the severe population structure can be adequately addressed within analysis.
Keywords: Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima, Beta maritima, Sea beet, Crop wild relatives (CWR), genetic diversity, population structure, Association mapping
Received: 26 May 2025; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Bertram, Gholami, Kopisch-Obuch and Frisch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lisa Bertram, Institute of Agronomy and Plant Breeding II, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.