Study of genetic variation in wild diploid wheat (Triticum boeoticum) from Iran using AFLP markers

Little information is available regarding genetic variation in wild wheat relatives from Iran. In this study, genetic diversity of 36 populations of wild einkorn wheat, Triticum boeoticum, was studied using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) primer combinations. Seventeen AFLP primer combinations led to amplify 979 scorable fragments ranging from 50 to 500 bp and of these, 429 (44%) were polymorphic across the 36 populations. The average Dice genetic similarity between T. boeoticum populations was 0.67 (range= 0.18-0.98). The dendrogram derived by unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean algorithm (UPGMA) analysis revealed three main groups. PCO analysis also confirmed subgrouping obtained by cluster analysis. The measured relative genetic distances among accessions was not correlated with geographical distances of places of their origins, indicating that the populations are genetically different. The results demonstrated that AFLP technology is a suitable technique for genetic resource management in T. boeoticum populations of these studied origin sites.