Biodiversity of Secale strictum in Iran measured using microsatellites

Abstract

The mountain rye Secale strictum is native to the Middle East and is the progenitor of the cultivated rye. Regarding lack of information about the genetic diversity of this species in Iran, this study was aimed to evaluate its genetic variation and to examine the patterns of diversity related to the varieties and geography. Fifteen wheat and rye derived microsatellite markers were used to achieve this aim. High levels of diversity, with an average number of 6.1 alleles per locus (ranging up to 11) and high level polymorphism with polymorphism rate averaging 0.624 (between populations) and 0.357 (within populations) were observed among 125 individuals from 19 populations collected from various regions of Iran. The Northwestern populations showed the highest and the Northern populations showed the lowest polymorphism and diversity. One population of the Northwest of the country was notably closer in its allele range to the S. cereale accessions used as outgroup. No taxon or geographic specific marker was detected, suggesting high gene flow between the populations, however some groupings which can be related to the geographic regions and varieties, were evident. The analysis of molecular variance attributed same portions of genetic diversity to the within and between populations with no significant variation among different geographic regions. The results of this study indicated that the Iranian genepool of Secale strictum is valuable to search for new useful alleles for crop improvement.