Evaluation of genetic diversity in Fennel accessions using AFLP markers

In this study, genetic diversity of 30 accessions of the Fennel from different cities of Iran and other Asian and European countries were assessed by using 20 selective AFLP primers. From a total of 1127 observed bands, 250 were polymorph. E11-M20 primer with 20 bands, also E46-M35 and ETG-M20 primers with 8 bands have indicated the maximum and minimum numbers of polymorphism, respectively. Grouping of genotypes has been done by NTSYS software, version 2.02e, by using the methods of UPGMA and Furthest neighbor (with Jaccard, Dice and SM coefficients). Calculation and comparison of Cophenetic correlation coefficient didn’t show a significant difference for the mentioned coefficients. Overall the method of UPGMA based on Jaccard coefficient has been recorded as the best method, due to genetic information and geographic analysis. Justification of the results was done based on the dendrogram produced from Jaccard coefficient. According to these markers, the similarity among the genotypes was 60%. The most genetic similarity was 97% found between two genotypes from Hungary and also in Iranian genotypes a similarity of 89% which was found between Karaj and Kashan genotypes. One genotype from Tabriz with a genetic diversity of 60% has shown the most amount of diversity in comparison with other genotypes. The results of cluster analysis, to some extent showed a relationship between molecular diversity and geographic diversity, in a way that the genotypes gathered from regions close to one another were in some cases placed in the same groups or subgroups. On the other hand some of the genotypes placed in the same subgroups, were from different geographic regions, which could also be a reason for similarity of regional conditions or physical interchange of plants in these regions. The results of this study showed that AFLP markers are suitable for assessing genetic diversity of Fennel accessions.