Data from: Ex situ conservation of underutilised fruit tree species: establishment of a core collection for Ficus carica L. using microsatellite markers (SSRs)

Ex situ germ plasm collections of woody crops are necessary to ensure the
optimal use of plant genetic resources. The fig tree (Ficus carica L.)
germ plasm bank, consisting of 229 accessions, is located in Centro de
Investigación ‘La Orden’. Despite great progress in conservation, ex situ
collections face size and organization problems. Core collections obtained
from structured samples of bigger collections are a useful tool to improve
germ plasm management. In this work, we used simple sequence repeat (SSR)
markers to establish a core collection in this underutilised Mediterranean
fruit tree species. Four approaches have been carried out (random
sampling, maximization, simulated annealing and stepwise clustering) to
determine the best method to develop a core collection in this woody
plant. The genetic diversity obtained with each subset was compared with
that of the complete collection. It was found that the most efficient way
to achieve the maximum diversity was the maximization strategy, which,
with 30 accessions, recovers all the SSR alleles and does not show
significant differences in allele frequency distribution in any of the
loci or in the variability parameters (H O, H E) between the whole and
core collections. Thus, this core collection, a representative of most fig
diversity conserved in the germ plasm bank, could be used as a basis for
plant material exchange among researchers and breeders.