Population Polymorphism Study Among Tulsi (Ocimum sp.) Ecotypes In Assam, India Using Morphological And Biochemical Parameters

Abstract

The genus Ocimum, (family Lamiaceae), displays great variability. Prevalence of cross pollination, polyploidy and interspecific hybridization has complicated its taxonomy, making its systematic study difficult. This study investigated the morphological and biochemical variability among 18 ecotypes collected from different parts of the Assam state, India. Considerable diversity was found using all the approaches. The quantitative morphological parameters showed wide variability, not always co-relating with their geographical distances. The Euclidean distance ranged between 6.06 (between the closest accessions) and 59.00 (between the most distant accessions). Phylogenetic analysis divided the accessions into two major clusters sharing approx. 76% identity, and a minor cluster (with three accessions) sharing only approx. 65% identity with the other two. A great deal of diversity was found in the qualitative characters too; that divided the ecotypes into two to five groups. The biochemical characters also revealed wide polymorphism; the distance varied from 1.690 to 58.574. Similar to the morphological characters, the biochemical parameters too did not always correlate with geographical distances. The phylogenetic mapping divided the accessions into two major clusters, sharing approx. 80% similarity. Further work will be needed to correlate the distance based on the morphological and the biochemical characters. (Omidbaigi et al. 2010, Carovic-Stanko et al. 2011. However, there is little information available regarding the plant's diversity in India and in Asia; there is confusion regarding even its genome structure. The northeastern part of India, including the state of Assam, being a biodiversity hotspot, would be a good start point to study the diversity of the plant in the country as well as in the region. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the categorization of the morphological and biochemical parameters of the plant. MATERIALS AND METHODS Plant Materials and Growth ConditionsThe plant materials were collected from 18 different districts of Assam and were named as accession (Acc) #1 to accession #18 (Table 1; Fig 1). Seeds were also collected for all the ecotypes, and were germinated in laboratory on moist filter paper in Assam Agricultural University (AAU), Jorhat. The seedlings were grown in the potting mixture prepared by mixing soil, sand and dried manure in the ratio of 2:1:1 v/v, and the plants were maintained in typical greenhouse conditions (16/8 hours of light/dark cycle and 22-25°C temperature) in the AAU facility. The morphological data were recorded at the vegetative (150 day-old) stage of the plants for the leaf and the stem characters; the inflorescence characters were taken at the reproductive stage, at the 200 day-old plants. For collection of the biochemical data, leaf samples were collected at the same stage and were processed for isolation and/ or quantification of the parameters. Morphological ParametersDefined descriptors are not available in tulsi. Therefore, based on t...

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