Genetic diversity in algerian durum wheat varieties (Triticum turgidum L var. durum) using microsatellite markers

Characterization of germplasm by DNA-markers provides powerful tool to precise germplasm identification, to quantify the genetic diversity and to estimate the phylogenetic relationship among genotypes in many crop species. The results of the present study realized between Nov and Dec 2016 in biotechnologie unit (ICARDA, Morocco) which aimed to characterize a subset of 14 Algerian selected durum wheat cultivars (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum), using 13 SSR (Single Sequence Repeat) indicated the presence of a total of 39 alleles. The genetic diversity at the 13 microsatellites loci varied from 0,142 for Xgwm337 to 0.735 for Xgwm213 with a mean of 0.444. Polymorphic information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.13 to 0.70 and the genetic distance among the cultivars from 0.15 to 0.77. Clustering analysis showed that the studied varieties were grouped according to their population of origin, suggesting a provenance effect in their ordination. In fact the most similar varieties were those introduced from CIMMYT-ICARDA breeding program, which may have common parents in their pedigree. Selections from local landraces were more similar to each other and dissimilar to CIMMYT-ICARDA material, showing an agro-ecological adaptation.