Abstract
Genetic diversity of durum wheat landraces is a powerful tool for the introgression of new alleles of commercial interest in breeding programs. In a previous study, our team structured a collection of 172 durum wheat landraces from 21 Mediterranean countries in four genetic populations related to their geographical origin: east Mediterranean (17), east Balkan and Turkey (23), west Balkan and Egypt (25), and West Mediterranean (73), leaving 34 genotypes as admixed, and association mapping was carried out for important agronomic traits. Using a subset of this collection, the current study identified 23 marker alleles with a differential frequency in landraces from east and west regions of the Mediterranean Basin, which affected important agronomic traits. Eastern landraces had higher frequencies than the western ones of alleles increasing the number of spikes (wPt-5385 on chromosome 1B), grains per m2 (wPt-0841 on chromosome 7B), and grain filling duration (7 significant marker trait associations). Eastern landraces had higher frequencies of marker alleles located on chromosomes 4A, 5B, and 6B associated with reduced cycle length, and lighter grains than the western ones. Also for lower kernel weight, four marker alleles were located on chromosome 1A. Breeders may use the molecular markers identified in the current study for improving yield under specific Mediterranean environments.
Highlights
Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum) is a self-pollinated tetraploid cereal and a traditional Mediterranean crop, with the Mediterranean Basin being the largest production area worldwide and North Africa the largest import market (Bonjean et al, 2016)
Based on the population structure of durum wheat Mediterranean landraces revealed by Soriano et al (2016), using a panel of 172 durum wheat landraces from the Mediterranean Basin (Royo et al, 2014; Soriano et al, 2016), the present work selected 14 genotypes from the eastern and 41 genotypes from the western Mediterranean populations with a membership coefficient q > 0.8 (Figure 1A)
Environment code Site Year Soil texture Sowing date Harvest date Environmental data from sowing to harvest Water input Mean of daily minimum temperatures (◦C) Mean of daily maximum temperatures (◦C) Accumulated ET0 Average daily relative air moisture (%) Average daily solar radiation (MJ m−2 d−1) Days sowing to anthesis modern cultivars Days sowing to anthesis western Mediterranean (WM) landraces Days sowing to anthesis eastern Mediterranean (EM) landraces
Summary
Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum) is a self-pollinated tetraploid cereal and a traditional Mediterranean crop, with the Mediterranean Basin being the largest production area worldwide and North Africa the largest import market (Bonjean et al, 2016). During the migration of wheat from the east to the west of the Mediterranean Basin, natural and human selection resulted in the establishment of local landraces, whose evolutionary dynamics are likely to have been strongly affected by environmental conditions, such as climatic variables, and soil properties (Mercer and Perales, 2010). These landraces were adapted to their region of origin, representing a diversity of agro-ecological zones, and are considered to be the most important sources of biodiversity within the species (Nazco et al, 2012). Durum wheat Mediterranean landraces are considered as resources for contemporary agriculture to increase the genetic diversity of modern cultivated varieties and to improve their adaptation to regions affected by biotic and abiotic constraints
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