Abstract
Nineteen strains of Zoysia sinica collected in Japan and Republic of Korea were investigated to clarify genetic diversity by molecular analysis with random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). In six selected primers after initial screening using a total of 40 primers, altogether 22 reproducible RAPD fragments were amplified. Of these, 19 polymorphic fragments (86.7%) were observed in the range of 200-2000 bp in the 19 strains of the species. RAPD analysis in our study revealed genetic variation among Z. sinica strains with average pairwise distance of 2.77. The highest genetic distance of 3.74 with 14 character differences was obtained within strains from Republic of Korea and between another Korean strain and one Japanese strain from Kyusyu Island, while the lowest genetic distance with only one different character was obtained between the strains of Tsushima Island, Japan.
