Morphological and Molecular Diversity in Ethiopian Lentil (Lens Culinaris Medikus) Landrace Accessions and Their Comparison with Some Exotic Genotypes
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Date
2006-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Seventy landrace accessions and eleven genotypes were used for morphological and ISSR
diversity study. The plant materials were grown in a simple lattice design of two replications for
morphological diversity study at Sinana Agricultural Research Center. Ten plants were selected
randomly from each accession/genotype and marked before flowering. Morphological data were
recorded from all selected plants on eleven traits. DNA was extracted from a bulk sample of five
plants using a triple CTAB extraction technique. Molecular data were generated using four ISSR
primers. ANOVA of morphological data indicated significant differences among the plant
materials. Estimates of phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation showed wider
variability within and between the landrace populations and between landraces and exotic
genotypes for different morphological characters. Morphological dissimilarity between the
populations ranged from 0.0519 to 0.73. Clustering analysis based on morphological dissimilarity
matrix revealed three groups with distinctive morphological traits. The wider phenotypic
variability observed encourages improvement activities between the lentils. Molecular analysis,
on the other hand, showed that exotic genotypes were more diverse compared to the landraces.
Genetic diversity within the total landrace population (HT) was 0.1734. High AR-based genetic
diversity (0.1395 – 0.1039) was observed for samples from Gonder, Shewa and Wello. High
within GR diversity was obtained for samples from NEE and the least for those from SEE. Exotic
genotypes were more distantly related with samples from Tigray, Gojam and Shewa than to
others. The genetic distances between populations of Ethiopian lentil landraces ranged from
0.2284 – 0.012. Samples from CE were more distantly related to samples of SEE, while the
distance between other GRs was relatively low. Estimates of population differentiation and gene
flow were moderately high for ARs. On the other hand, GR-based population differentiation was
low, whereas among GR gene flow was high relative to AR-based population differentiation.
AMOVA revealed higher within population variation than among population. Cluster analysis
based on Dice’s similarity coefficient revealed three groups with distinct molecular profiles both
with and without exotic genotypes. There were highly significant (p < 0.001) correlations, r =
0.45 and r = 0.26, between morphological and molecular distance matrices, respectively, of the
entire plant materials and landraces separately, implying the validity of both methods for
diversity study in lentils. Observation of low within AR/population diversity invites further
collection activities, while enriching populations with high genetic diversity.