Genetic diversity of yam (Dioscorea spp.) landrace collections from Ethiopia using simple sequence repeat markers

Abstract

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is an important root crop widely used for food, feed and industrial raw material. Knowledge on the genetic diversity present among yam genetic resources is fundamental for variety development and conservation strategies. The objectives of this study were to determine the magnitude and genetic relationship present among yam landrace collections using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and to identify genetically unique genotypes for efficient breeding and conservation. Thirty-three yam landraces collected from various regions of Ethiopia were genotyped using 10 selected polymorphic SSR markers. The markers amplified a total of 30 alleles from the population sampled, of which 80% was polymorphic. The number of alleles detected per locus ranged from 1 to 5, with a mean of 3. Number of effective alleles ranged from 1.00 to 3.57 with a mean of 1.71. Gene diversity ranged from 0.00 to 0.80 with a mean of 0.53. The mean polymorphic information content was 0.30. Genetic distance values ranged from 0.0 to 1.0, with a mean of 0.39. Analysis of molecular variance revealed that 79% of the variation detected was found within collection sites, while collection sites accounted for only 17% of the total variation. The study established the existence of considerable genetic diversity among yam landrace collections from Ethiopia. Distinct landraces such as 32/83 and 46/83 from Cluster I and 6/02, 2/87, 3/87, 45/03, 76/02, 21/02 and 34/87 from Cluster II were selected based on their highest dissimilarity index. The selected genetic resources are useful as a source of genes of novelty for yam breeding and variety development.

Assessing the genetic diversity of Dioscorea alata and related species from Colombia through inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers

“…Finally, high levels of genetic diversity using ISSR markers were also reported by Nascimento et al (2013) and Kung et al (2016). Other studies using SSR (Otoo et al, 2015;Arnau et al, 2017;Mulualem et al, 2018) and AFLP markers (Rivera-Jiménez et al, 2011) also reported high genetic diversity in yam.…”

“…Assessing the genetic diversity of a plant species using molecular DNA markers is an important tool for cultivar identification, taxonomic and phylogenetic studies, genetic mapping, and germplasm management and conservation (Onda and Mochida, 2016). The genetic diversity of yam has been characterized using several markers, including RFLP (Mukherjee and Bhat, 2013), SSR (Arnau et al, 2017;Mulualem et al, 2018), AFLP (Rivera-Jiménez et al, 2011;Wendawek et al, 2013), ISSR (Kung et al, 2016;Ousmael et al, 2019), and SNP (Agre et al, 2019). Bhattacharjee et al (2018) constructed a genetic linkage map for D. alata based on 380 EST-SSR markers.…”

Genetic Variability and Population Structure of Ethiopian Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) Germplasm Assessed through Phenotypic Traits and Simple Sequence Repeats Markers

“…In the present study, the genotypes' clustering patterns did not correspond to the predefined population structure based on the collection regions. This may be because genotypes gathered from similar regions belong to the same gene pool or may have similar ancestral relationships [35]. Conversely, William et al [36] reported that genetic dissimilarity among test genotypes could arise due to the diverse ancestral origin, high gene flow caused by cross-pollination and possible gene or chromosomal mutation.…”

Comparative assessment of genetic diversity matrices and clustering methods in white Guinea yam (Dioscorea rotundata) based on morphological and molecular markers

“…Genetic diversity in D. rotundata has been assessed using morphological traits 8 , 9 , isozymes 10 , 11 , amplified fragment length polymorphism 12 , simple sequence repeats 13 , 14 , random amplified polymorphic DNA 15 and single nucleotide polymorphisms 16 . As a result of the strong environmental influence on their expression, phenotypic markers may not precisely capture the available diversity in a population 7 , 17 . Molecular markers, particularly SSR and SNPs have been widely employed to study the diversity in many species with much success, however, very low or negligible correlations have been reported between the dissimilarity matrices from the genotypic and phenotypic data 18 , 19 .…”