ABSTRACT
Tunisian tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is an important grass for forages or soil conservation, particularly in marginal sites. Inter-simple sequence repeats were used to estimate genetic diversity within and among 8 natural populations and 1 cultivar from Northern Tunisia. A total of 181 polymorphic inter-simple sequence repeat markers were generated using 7 primers. Shannon's index and analysis of molecular variance evidenced a high molecular polymorphism at intra-specific levels for wild and cultivated accessions, showing that Tunisian tall fescue germplasm constitutes an important pool of diversity. Within-population variation accounted for 39.42% of the total variation, but no regional differentiation was discernible to designate close relationships between regions. Most of the variation (GST = 67%) occurred between populations, rather than within populations. The ɸST (0.60) revealed high population structuring. Additionally, the population structure was independent of the geographic origin and was not affected by environmental factors. The unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean tree based on genetic similarity and principal coordinate analysis based on coefficient similarity illustrated that continental populations from the proximate localities of Beja and Jendouba were genetically closely related, while the wild Skalba population from the littoral Tunisian locality was the most diverse from the others. Moreover, great molecular similarity of the spontaneous population Sedjnane originated from the mountain areas was revealed with the local cultivar Mornag. The observed genetic diversity can be used to implement conservation strategies and breeding programs for improving forage crops in Tunisia.
Subject(s)
DNA, Plant/genetics , Festuca/genetics , Microsatellite Repeats , Genetic Variation , Genetics, Population , Sequence Analysis, DNA , TunisiaABSTRACT
Tunisia is rich in diverse forage and pasture species including perennial ryegrass. In order to enhance forage production and improve agronomic performance of this local germplasm, a molecular analysis was undertaken. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) and morpho-agronomical traits markers were used for genetic diversity estimation of ryegrass germplasm after screening 20 spontaneous accessions, including a local and an introduced cultivars. Same mean polymorphism information content values were obtained (0.37) for RAPD and ISSR suggesting that both marker systems were equally effective in determining polymorphisms. The average pairwise genetic distance values were 0.57 (morpho-agronomical traits), 0.68 (RAPD), and 0.51 (ISSR) markers data sets. A higher Shannon diversity index was obtained with ISSR marker (0.57) than for RAPD (0.54) and morpho-agronomical traits (0.36). The Mantel test based on genetic distances of a combination of molecular markers and morpho-agronomical data exhibited a significant correlation between RAPD and ISSR data, suggesting that the use of a combination of molecular techniques was a highly efficient method of estimating genetic variability levels among Tunisian ryegrass germplasm. In summary, results showed that combining molecular and morpho-agronomical markers is an efficient way in assessing the genetic variability among Tunisian ryegrass genotypes. In addition, the combined analysis provided an exhaustive coverage for the analyzed diversity and helped us to identify suitable accessions showed by Beja and Jendouba localities, which present large similarities with cultivated forms and can be exploited for designing breeding programmes, conservation of germplasm and management of ryegrass genetic resources.