Analysis of genetic diversity in the core collection of red clover (Trifolium pratense) with isozyme and RAPD markers

P.M.B Dias,J.A Zuanazzi,V.F Pretz,M.T Schifino-Wittmann,M Dall’Agnol

doi:10.12702/1984-7033.v08n03a04

Abstract

The genetic diversity in the red clover USA core collection was measured by RAPD and isozyme markers, comparing different approaches of isozyme data analysis and comparing the results of RAPD with those of isozymes. A total of 15 isozyme loci and 114 RAPD fragments were analyzed. Genetic diversity measured with RAPD and isozymes was high. The analyses of isozymes as binary data was highly correlated with the allele-frequency approach. There was no correlation between the distance matrices of different markers. Isozyme data grouped the accessions of red clover in four groups. The variation evidenced by AMOVA was higher among and within groups in the populations than at the intra-population level. Results showed the high diversity in the red clover core collection and indicated some populations that could be used in breeding programs of the crop in Brazil.

Highlights

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is a short-lived herbaceous forage crop thought to be originated in southeastern Europe and Asia Minor near the Mediterranean Sea (Taylor and Quesenberry 1996)
The number of bands and levels of genetic diversity found here were in agreement with previous studies where esterase isozyme patterns were scored as binary data
Similar genetic diversity levels for esterase loci were found by Lange and Schifino-Wittmann (2000) ranging from 0.24 to 0.96 when analyzing eight Trifolium species with four enzymatic systems based on isozymes markers as binary data

Summary

Introduction

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is a short-lived herbaceous forage crop thought to be originated in southeastern Europe and Asia Minor near the Mediterranean Sea (Taylor and Quesenberry 1996). Many studies using morphologic (Kouamé and Quesenberry 1993, Christie and Choo 1991, Bulinska-Radomska 2000), molecular (Kongkiatngam et al 1995, Campos-de-Quiroz and Ortega-Klose 2001, Kölliker et al 2003, Greene et al 2004, Herrmann et al 2005, Sato et al 2006) and biochemical traits (Hagen and Hamrick 1998, Yu et al 2001, Mosjidis and Klingler 2006) have demonstrated high genetic diversity, both among and within red clover populations. When only one or few traits are used to characterize collections, there is little opportunity to understand relationships among different traits within collections (Brown 1989)

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Conclusion