Examination of Genetic Diversity of Common Bean from the Western Balkans

Abstract

<jats:p>In this study, genetic diversity of 119 accessions of common bean (<jats:italic>Phaseolus vulgaris</jats:italic>) from five former Yugoslav republics constituting the western Balkans was assessed by 13 microsatellite markers. This set of markers has proven before to efficiently distinguish between bean genotypes and assign them to either the Andean or the Mesoamerican gene pool of origin. In this study, 118 alleles were detected or 9.1 per locus on average. Four groups (i.e., Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian) showed similarly high levels of genetic diversity as estimated by the number of different alleles, number of effective alleles, Shannon’s information index, and expected heterozygosity. Mildly narrower genetic diversity was identified within a group of Macedonian accessions; however, this germplasm yielded the highest number of private alleles. All five germplasms share a great portion of genetic diversity as indicated by the analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA). On the basis of the scored number of migrants, we concluded that the most intensive gene flow in the region exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Cluster analysis based on collected molecular data classified the accessions into two large clusters that corresponded to two gene pools of origin (i.e., Andean and Mesoamerican). We found that Andean genotypes are more prevalent than Mesoamerican in all studied countries, except Macedonia, where the two gene pools are represented evenly. This could indicate that common bean was introduced into the western Balkans mainly from the Mediterranean Basin. Bayesian cluster analysis revealed that in the area studied an additional variation exists which is related to the Andean gene pool. Different scenarios of the origin of this variation are discussed in the article.</jats:p>

Drought Stress Response in Agricultural Plants: A Case Study of Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgarisL.)

“…Mesoamerican bean genotypes can be distinguished by longer flowering times and small seeds, while Andean genotypes have large and colorful seeds [21,22]. Phylogenetic studies and evaluation of common bean genotypes collected from different regions, ranging from the Americas, Africa [23,24] and Europe [25][26][27][28], have confirmed independent domestication events specific to each of the gene-pools [20,29].…”

“…Common bean was introduced in Europe centuries ago by independent domestication events from both major centers of origin [25][26][27][28]. Our phylogenetic studies shed more light on the understanding of dissemination pathways and the evolution of this species in central Europe and have been focused on the germplasm from the Central European, South East European and Balkan region [27,28,30]. Evaluations of genetic diversity and the population structure of 167 historical and current accessions with the different geographical origin (Slovenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia) have revealed great allelic polymorphism in 14 SSR markers.…”

Genetic diversity of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) breeding collection in Serbia

“…Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) are especially suitable for genetic diversity studies due to their abundance in genome, high reproducibility and codominant nature (RAGGI et al, 2013). LIOI et al (2012) and MARAS et al (2015) have used these types of markers in common bean germplasm characterization.…”

Relationship between origin and nutrient content of Croatian common bean landraces

“…Thus, common bean is known for its morphological variability and adaptability to different environments, creating a wide range of local varieties or landraces, as well as different technological quality of seeds (Perina et al, 2014). Moreover, studies carried out using phaseolin type as a discriminator showed that both gene pools are present in Europe, with a higher frequency of the Andean type (Bellucci et al, 2014;Maras et al, 2015). In many European countries, the selective pressure operated by farmers over time on the common bean genetic pool of introduced accessions led to the creation of well adapted landraces (Piergiovanni and Lioi, 2010).…”