Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in Vicia faba L. Landraces and Wild Related Species Assessed by Nuclear SSRs

Abstract

Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is a facultative cross-pollinating legume crop with a great importance for food and feed due to its high protein content as well as the important role in soil fertility and nitrogen fixation. In this work we evaluated genetic diversity and population structure of faba bean accessions from the Western Mediterranean basin and wild related species. For that purpose we screened 53 V. faba, 2 V. johannis and 7 V. narbonensis accessions from Portugal, Spain and Morocco with 28 faba bean Single Sequence Repeats (SSR). SSR genotyping showed that the number of alleles detected per locus for the polymorphic markers ranged between 2 and 10, with Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) values between 0.662 and 0.071, and heterozygosity (HO) between 0–0.467. Heterozygosity and inbreeding coefficient levels indicate a higher level of inbreeding in wild related species than in cultivated Vicia. The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed a superior genetic diversity within accessions than between accessions even from distant regions. These results are in accordance to population structure analysis showing that individuals from the same accession can be genetically more similar to individuals from far away accessions, than from individuals from the same accession. In all three levels of analysis (whole panel of cultivated and wild accessions, cultivated faba bean accessions and Portuguese accessions) no population structure was observed based on geography or climatic factors. Differences between V. narbonensis and V. johannis are undetectable although these wild taxa are clearly distinct from V. faba accessions. Thus, a limited gene flow occurred between cultivated accessions and wild relatives. Contrastingly, the lack of population structure seems to indicate a high degree of gene flow between V. faba accessions, possibly explained by the partially allogamous habit in association with frequent seed exchange/introduction.

Genetic variability in Tunisian populations of faba bean (Vicia faba L. var. major) assessed by morphological and SSR markers

“…Interestingly, our data are consistent with previous studies in faba bean which revealed a larger genetic variation and differentiation within than between population (Terzopoulos and Bebeli 2008; Ouji et al 2011;Oliveira et al 2016). Moreover, this was consistent with the findings from other species such as grapevine (De Andrés et al 2012), olive (Belaj et al 2007), apple ) and lettuce (Rauscher and Simko 2013).…”

Root traits of European Vicia faba cultivars-Using machine learning to explore adaptations to agroclimatic conditions

“…The four pairs that could not be separated were all from Northern Europe (Figure S3), and future studies should reveal if cultivars are genetically most similar. In contrast, all Portuguese cultivars were clearly separable by specific root traits, which support previous reports on the large genetic diversity of faba bean cultivars in Portugal/Western Mediterranean basin (Oliveira et al, ; Tomás et al, ). See the Supporting Information for a more throughout discussion of pairwise comparison.…”

Evaluation of the genetic variability of faba bean (Vicia faba L.) genotypes using agronomic traits and molecular markers

“…The PIC values varied from 0.38 to 0.84 with an average of 0.69, reported by Abid et al (2015). Oliveira et al (2016) found that the PIC value ranged from 0.071 to 0.662 with an average of 0.333. A high level of variability was found, similar to those previously recorded by Ammar et al (2015), and primers obtained DP from 5% with primer Me2/em4 to 29% with Me2/me6, with a main 17% (Ammar et al 2015).…”