Fikiru, Edossa2022-01-242023-11-082022-01-242023-11-082006http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/29568Seventy landracc accessions and eleven genotypes were used for morphological and ISSR diversity study. The plant materials were grown in a simple lattice design of two repl ications for morphological di vers ity s tudy at Sinana Agricult ural Research Center. Ten plants were selected randomly frolll each accession/genotype and marked before flowerin g. Morphological data were recorded from all selected plams on cleven trailS. DNA was ex tracted fro Ol a bulk sample of fi ve plants using a triple CTAB extraction technique. Molecular data were generated using lour ISSR primers. ANOVA of morphological data indicated significant differences among the pl ant materials. Estimmcs of phenotypic and genotypic coeffic ien ts o f vari ation showed wider variabili ty within and between the landrace popula tions and betwccn land races and exotic genotypes for different morphological characters. Morphological dissim ilarity between the populations ranged from 0.05 19 to 0.73. Clustering anal ysis based on morphologi cal di ssi milarity matrix re vealed three groups wi th distinctive morphological traits. The wider phenotypic variability observed encourages improvement acti vities between the lentils. Molecular analysis, on the other hand, showed that exotic genotypes were more diverse compared to the landraces. Genetic di versity with in the total landrace population (I-I r) was 0.1734. !-ligh AR-based genetic diversity (0. I 395 - 0.1039) was observed for samples from Gonder. Shewa and Well o. lI igh wi thin GR divers ity was obtained for samples from NEE and the least for those from SEE. Exotic genotypes were more di stantly related with samples frolll Tigray, Gojam and Shewa than to others. The genetic di stances between populations of Ethiopian lentil land races ran ged from 0.2284 - 0.0 12. Samples from CE were more distantly related to samples of SEE. while the di stance between other GRs was relatively low. Es till1 ates of population difTerent iat ion and gene now were moderately high ror ARs. On the other hand. GR-based population difTerentiation was low, whereas among GR gene flow was high relative to AR-based population di fferentiation. AMOVA revealed higher within population variation than among population. Cluster analysis based on Dice's s imilarity coefficient revealed three groups with di stinct molecular proliles both wi th and without exotic genotypes. There were high ly s ignificant (p < 0.00 1) corre lations, r = 0.45 and r = 0.26, between morphological and molecular distance matrices, respecti vely, of the entire pl ant materials and landraces separately. implying the vali dity or both methods for diversi ty study in lentil s. Observation of low \\ ith in ARlpopulation divers ity invi tes fu rther collection ac ti vities. while enriching populations with high genetic diversity.enThesis