Wild Emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides) Diversity in Southern Turkey: Evaluation of SSR and Morphological Variations

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Abstract

Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides) is the ancestral species of cultivated tetraploid wheat with BBAA genomes. Because of its full interfertility with domesticated emmer wheat, this wild species can serve as one of the most important genetic resources to improve durum as well as bread wheat. To clarify the magnitude of genetic diversity between and within populations of Turkish wild emmer wheat, 169 genotypes of ssp. dicoccoides selected from the 38 populations collected from the three sub-regions (East-1, West-1, and West-2) of the Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey were molecularly and morphologically characterized. The populations showed significant variation in plant height, peduncle length, flag leaf length and area, length of the uppermost awn in the spikelet, length of the lowermost awn in the spikelet, width and height of the glume, length and width of the anther, and 1000 seeds weight. According to the results of nuclear-SSR analysis, the populations collected from the sub-regions East-1 and West-2 were genetically most distant (0.539), while the populations collected from the sub-regions West-1 and West-2 were genetically most similar (0.788) populations. According to the results of AMOVA, there was a 84 % within the populations studied, while the variation between the populations of the three sub-regions was 16 %. In the dendrogram obtained by using nuclear-SSR data, the populations formed two main groups. Populations from the sub-region East-1 were in the first group, and the populations from the sub-regions West-1 and West-2 were in the second group. From the dendrogram, it appears that the populations from the sub-region East-1 were genetically distant from the populations from the sub-regions West-1 and West-2. The results highlight the potential diversity in the Southeast Anatolia for wild emmer discovery and utilization.

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