Genetic diversity and relationships among wild and cultivated Ficus carica L.: Usefulness of RGA markers

Disease resistance and the maintenance of genetic diversity in wild and cultivated populations are very important challenges to implement breeding program and markers assisted selection of Ficus carica L. facing climate change and its consequences. Resistance gene analogs (RGA) markers were used for variety discrimination and assessment of genetic structure and diversity of wild and cultivated Ficus carica L. species in Tunisia. The RGA markers were efficient and reliable markers for discriminating wild and cultivated fig. The high level of polymorphism (95.65) detected suggests the effectiveness of RGAs for both genetic fingerprinting and relationships assessment in wild and cultivated fig. The detected markers may represent candidate genes for disease resistance and could be further used to facilitate the identification of candidate genes and accelerate the genetic improvement of disease resistance in breeding programs of Ficus carica species

Genetic structure and differentiation in cultivated fig (Ficus carica L.)

One hundred ninety-four germplasm accessions of fig representing the four fig types, Common, Smyrna, San Pedro, and Caprifig were analyzed for genetic diversity, structure, and differentiation using genetic polymorphism at 15 microsatellite loci. The collection showed considerable polymorphism with observed number of alleles per locus ranging from four for five different loci, MFC4, LMFC14, LMFC22, LMFC31 and LMFC35 to nine for LMFC30 with an average of 4.9 alleles per locus. Seven of the 15 loci included in the genetic structure analyses exhibited significant deviation from panmixia, of which two showed excess and five showed deficiency of heterozygote. The cluster analysis (CA) revealed ten groups with 32 instances of synonymy among cultivars and groups differed significantly for frequency and composition of alleles for different loci. The principal components analysis (PCA) confirmed the results of CA with some groups more differentiated than the others. Further, the model based Bayesian approach clustering suggested a subtle population structure with mixed ancestry for most figs. The gene diversity analysis indicated that much of the total variation is found within groups (HG/HT = 0.853; 85.3%) and the among groups within total component (GGT = 0.147) accounted for the remaining 14.7%, of which ~64% accounted for among groups within clusters (GGC = 0.094) and ~36% among clusters (GCT = 0.053). The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed approximately similar results with nearly 87% of variation within groups and ~10% among groups within clusters, and ~3% among clusters. Overall, the gene pool of cultivated fig analyzed possesses substantial genetic polymorphism but exhibits narrow differentiation. It is evident that fig accessions from Turkmenistan are somewhat genetically different from the rest of the Mediterranean and the Caucasus figs. The long history of domestication and cultivation with widespread dispersal of cultivars with many synonyms has resulted in a great deal of confusion in the identification and classification of cultivars in fig

The Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) leaf proteome: identification of a gender biomarker to screen male parents

Abstract To establish a proteomic reference map of date palm leaves (Deglet Nour cultivar), we separated and identified leaf proteins using two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry, respectively. In total, 284 spots were excised from gel and analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Among them, 158 were successfully identified (i.e, a success rate of 55.6%) conducting to the identification of 126 unique proteins. These proteins were then clustered according to their functional annotations. Identified proteins were involved in metabolism, electron transport, photosynthesis, protein synthesis, cell structure or defence. However, 29.4 % of the identifications gave unknown function. We then compared the proteome map of female and male trees. Only one discriminated spot was found to be specific of the gender. We identified the corresponding protein as an ABC superfamily ATP binding cassette transporter, ABC protein, a protein whose an ortholog in Arabidopsis thaliana was already reported as required for male fertility and pollen formation. The relevance of this protein as gender biomarker was then confirmed in four other cultivars, i.e., Aligue, Khouet Aligue, Kentichi and Kenta. Such biomarker should be helpful in rapidly distinguishing date palm gender of immature trees

Effects of Natural and Anthropogenic Stressors on Fucalean Brown Seaweeds Across Different Spatial Scales in the Mediterranean Sea

Este artículo contiene 14 páginas, 8 figuras, 3 tablas.Algal habitat-forming forests composed of fucalean brown seaweeds (Cystoseira, Ericaria, and Gongolaria) have severely declined along the Mediterranean coasts, endangering the maintenance of essential ecosystem services. Numerous factors determine the loss of these assemblages and operate at different spatial scales, which must be identified to plan conservation and restoration actions. To explore the critical stressors (natural and anthropogenic) that may cause habitat degradation, we investigated (a) the patterns of variability of fucalean forests in percentage cover (abundance) at three spatial scales (location, forest, transect) by visual estimates and or photographic sampling to identify relevant spatial scales of variation, (b) the correlation between semi-quantitative anthropogenic stressors, individually or cumulatively (MA-LUSI index), including natural stressors (confinement, sea urchin grazing), and percentage cover of functional groups (perennial, semi-perennial) at forest spatial scale. The results showed that impacts from mariculture and urbanization seem to be the main stressors affecting habitat-forming species. In particular, while mariculture, urbanization, and cumulative anthropogenic stress negatively correlated with the percentage cover of perennial fucalean species, the same stressors were positively correlated with the percentage cover of the semi-perennial Cystoseira compressa and C. compressa subsp. pustulata. Our results indicate that human impacts can determine spatial patterns in these fragmented and heterogeneous marine habitats, thus stressing the need of carefully considering scale-dependent ecological processes to support conservation and restoration.This study was supported by the European Union’s EASME (Executive Agency for Small and Medium Enterprise) and EMFF (European Maritime and Fisheries fund) as part of the project AFRIMED, “Algal Forest Restoration in the Mediterranean Sea” (under grant agreement no. 789059), http:// afrimed-project.eu/.Peer reviewe

Genetic variability organisation and gene flow in natural populations of Medicago polymorpha L. prospected in Tunisia

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