Abstract
Astragalus rhizanthus with three infraspecific taxa (i.e., A. rhizanthus ssp. rhizanthus var. rhizanthus, A. rhizanthus ssp. rhizanthus var. pindreensis, and A. rhizanthus ssp. candolleanus) is widely scattered in the Himalaya from Jammu and Kashmir to Uttarakhand provinces in India. Among them, A. rhizanthus ssp. rhizanthus var. rhizanthus exhibits enormous morphological diversity throughout its range of distribution. An assessment of genetic diversity studies was undertaken to understand the level and pattern of diversity, using Inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR), Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Directed amplification of minisatellite DNA (DAMD) profiles. Fifteen ISSR, 18 RAPD and 6 DAMD primers were used to unravel the diversity among 20 genotypes collected from the known localities in the Indian Himalaya. A total of 242 bands from ISSR, 352 from RAPD and 142 from DAMD were obtained with an average of 92.23% polymorphism in the species. Pair-wise genetic similarity for the cumulative data was determined using Jaccard's similarity coefficient which varied from 0.19 to 0.84. A combined UPGMA dendrogram was generated which revealed that different genotypes exhibited their affinity according to their geographical distribution. Tree topology suggests the existence of two distinct groups of the genotypes. Gene diversity (H) and Shannon's information index (I) were estimated and these values were found higher in the genotypes collected from Jammu and Kashmir than Himachal Pradesh.
Highlights
Astragalus L., with about 2500–3000 species, is the largest genus of flowering plants in the world [1,2,3]
A large number of samples were collected from all possible and known localities of the cold desert of Lahul-Spiti (Himachal Pradesh) and Leh and Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir) in India out of which some 20 genotypes have been selected for Inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR), Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and Directed amplification of minisatellite DNA (DAMD) analyses (Table 1)
20 genotypes of the A. rhizanthus ssp. rhizanthus var. rhizanthus and one of Oxytropis tatarica as the out-group were considered to assess the genetic diversity by using ISSR, RAPD, and DAMD analyses as no such type of study has been carried out on this species in the past
Summary
Astragalus L., with about 2500–3000 species, is the largest genus of flowering plants in the world [1,2,3]. In India, it has about 80–90 species, distributed in the temperate to alpine regions of the Himalaya with the main center of diversity in the cold deserts of Lahul-Spiti (Himachal Pradesh) and Leh and Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir) [4, 5] (Figure 1). With three infraspecific taxa, A. rhizanthus ssp. Pindreensis (Baker) Podl., and A. rhizanthus ssp. Occurs in the Himalaya from Afghanistan to Nepal and in India from Jammu and Kashmir to Uttarakhand [6], out of which A. rhizanthus ssp. Rhizanthus exhibits enormous amount of morphological variations among different populations as observed during the examination of Indian Astragalus by one of us The Indian women chewed the roots of the taxon to stimulate lactation.
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