Diversity analysis in Arachis subspecies using phenotypic characterization and microsatellite (SSR) markers

Abstract

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is one of the important economic crops of the world. It is the world’s fourth most important source of edible oil and third most important source of vegetable protein. A study was conducted at Department of Seed Science and Technology, B. A. College of Agriculture, AAU, Anand, to investigate morphological and molecular characterization in different Arachis spp. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with two replications and evaluated for 28 quantitative and 20 qualitative characters. Genetic distances among the genotypes obtained from the analysis of 20 qualitative traits ranged from 1.00 between the pairs ICG1994 and AG2245 and upto 9.70 between pairs ICG6813 and JB1180. Dendrogram developed using average taxonomic distance matrix by UPGMA method formed four major clusters. The dendrogram could not establish any distinct relationship between different botanical groups. However, few genotypes belonging to spanish bunch group tend to cluster together exhibiting their common phylogenetic relationship. This was also evident in the case of Virginia bunch cultures where a common phylogenetic relationship was observed. Pooled SSR analysis of 50 groundnut genotypes using 23 SSR primers generated a total of 1293 scorable bands with 251 alleles. The average PIC value was 0.670. The average genetic similarity coefficient obtained by using SSR markers for different genotypes in this study was 0.27.