GENETIC DIVERSITY OF ETHIOPIAN DEKOKO (Pisum sativum L. var. abyssinicum) LANDRACES USING INTER-SIMPLE SEQUENCE REPEAT (ISSR) MARKERS

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.