Abstract:
P. sativum L. var. abyssinicum is a marginalized, economically important and endemic, cool -
season legume - crop in Ethiopia. However, no genetic diversity study has been employed using
molecular markers on this crop species sofar. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate
genetic diversity and population structure of P. sativum L.var abyssinicum collected from
Southern Tigray and Northern Amhara regions of Ethiopia. Six ISSR (Inter simple sequence
repeat) primers were used to study the genetic diversity of 83 accessions of P. sativum L. var.
abyssinicum collected from southern Tigray and northern Amhara regions of Ethiopia. Out of
the 91 well defined bands generated, 55(64.44%) revealed polymorphic and higher percentage
of polymorphic bands (24.18%) were observed in the EM, EA and OF populations. The seven
populations revealed a significant level of genetic diversity at the species level. Jaccard's
pairwise similarity coefficients ranged from 0.58 to 1.00 indicating the presence of moderate
level of genetic relationship at molecular level among the studied accessions. Analyses of
Molecular Variance (AMOVA) also revealed genetic diversity among and within populations,
46% and 54% respectively and showed highly significant genetic differences (p<0.001). Cluster
analysis clearly discriminated the accessions into two major clusters. Result of principal
coordinate analysis was in agreement with cluster analysis. Both the Unweighted Pair Group
Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) cluster analysis and Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCO) supported the grouping of all seven populations into six groups. The high genetic
diversity among populations implies that the conservation efforts should aim to preserve all the
extant populations of this endangered species. In addition, the accessions collected from EBI
can also be targeted for further evaluation of their unique character for breeding purposes.
