Maowusu sandy grassland locating at an ecotone between typical desert and typical grassland contained several landscape ecotypes or elements where Caragana intermedia Kuang et H.C.Fu naturally distributed as a dominant species in shrub ecosystems. Based on a phenomenon of gene segregation of open-pollinated seeds within each plants similar to Mendel’s segregation in F 2, a study on testing the breeding systems of populations under 4 landscape ecotypes was conducted. Statistical data showed its availability in estimation of breeding system parameters when isozymes were used as genetic markers. Nei’s genetic differentiation G ST among 4 ecotypes in Maowusu was estimated at 0.07 from lap loci close to a G ST=0.076 reported in the authors’ laboratory. The results indicated that breeding systems of populations gradually changed from total outbreeding to partial inbreeding when water conditions worsened. Therefore, the former RAPD data, especially the cline of frequencies for a few polymorphic DNAs in different landscapes can be partially explained by gene fixation caused by selfing or inbreeding probably induced by drought. It was difficult to assess breeding system parameters by using one dimensional SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of seed proteins of C. intermedia simply due to a difficulty of genetic analysis of seed protein subunits.
