Relationships among some regional species of the genus Lolium L. based on morphological and molecular markers

Asmaa Kh.Amin et al.,            

Lolium L. | Taxonomic relationships

Vol: 3; Iss: 9; Sep 17 | ISSN: 2454-5422

This study dealt with 89 accessions representing 40 populations of five species (Lolium perenne, Lolium multiflorum, Lolium rigidum, Lolium temulentum and Lolium persicum) distributed over 14 Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Cyprus, Romania, Greece and Albania) distributed over three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe). We depended on 80 qualitative and quantitative morphological characters with 172 character states. The genetic polymorphism and gene diversity was assessed using five polymorphic inter simple sequence repeat primers. Based on Morphological observations, the studied species were separated into two groups, the first combines L. perenne, L. multiflorum and L. rigidum, where, L. perenne is more associated to L. multiflorum than to L. rigidum; the second combines L. temulentum and L. persicum; to some extent geographical distribution influenced the relationships among the populations. High degree of gene diversity with polymorphism percentage of 95.62% was detected among the studied species. Genetically, high degrees of genetic distance are observed among the studied populations; the geographical distribution has a great influence on the population’s relationships. The Molecular data also confirmed the separation of two groups, the first combines L. perenne, L. multiflorum and L. rigidum (as resulted from morphological data), but here, L. perenne is more associated to L. rigidum than to L. multiflorum; and the second combines L. temulentum and L. persicum. No infraspecific taxa below the studied species were observed.