Genetic diversity and population structure of Vitellaria paradoxa in Cameroon and Chad using GbS

The knowledge of genetic diversity plays an important role in guiding strategies for the adaptation of species to climate change and the management of agroforestry threatened tree species. The shea tree or Vitellaria (Vitellaria paradoxa C. F. Gaertn.) is known to be the second most important oil crop in Africa after oil palm, and the most economically and culturally important indigenous tree species in the Sudano-Sahelian region of Africa. In many African countries, it represents 80% of the woody vegetation in agroforestry parklands. However, the species is listed since 1998 as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Previous studies on the genetic diversity and structure of shea tree species in his natural distribution range have been assessed employing various molecular markers, but to date, very few of them have used next-generation sequencing (NGS). To fill this knowledge gap, a genotyping-by-sequencing approach was applied to describe the diversity and the population structure of 644 trees from 20 populations of Cameroon and Chad and one outlying allopatric population from Mali.