Evaluation of salt tolerance in almond [Prunus dulcis (L.) Batsch] rootstocks

In this study, four interspecific Prunus rootstocks (‘HS314’, ‘HS312’, ‘HS302’ and ‘GF677’) and the Iranian almond cultivar ‘Sahand’ were subjected to four different salinity levels (1.5, 3, 6 and 9 dSm-1) to determine the effects of salt level on growth parameters and chemical compositions. The results obtained indicate that increased salinity level had significant negative effects on leaf chlorophyll content, leaf area, dry and fresh weight of root and shoot. In addition, increasing the salinity level in general caused an increase in leaf proline concentration; however, the different genotypes were significantly different in response to the salinity level. According to these findings, proline content increase in ‘Sahand’ cultivar was lower than those of the other studied genotypes were. The majority of the plant's responses to the high salinity levels (6 and 9 dSm-1) were significant with no deleterious effects observed on plant growth triggered by lower salt concentrations of 1.5 and 3 dSm-1. A significant decrease in total chlorophyll and chlorophyll b content was also found at the high salinity levels but no significant change in chlorophyll a was evident. The potassium (K+), magnesium (Mg2+), calcium (Ca2+), sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-) ion concentrations of the leaves and roots were significantly different among the studied genotypes due to their exposure to different salinity levels. The concentration of Mg2+, Cl- and Na+ as well as the Na+/K+ ratio in the leaves of all the genotypes were increased by the salinity stress, whereas it had no significant effect on the Ca2+ and K+ concentrations as well as the Na+/Ca2+ ratio. The result obtained in this study suggest that ‘HS314’ and ‘GF677’ interspecific hybrids may represent novel sources of salinity tolerance.Keywords: Breeding, interspecific hybridization, proline, salinit

Diversity of morpho-physicochemical traits in Iranian sour cherry genotypes using multivariate analysis

In this study, morpho-physicochemical characterization of sour cherry genotypes from Iran was investigated. Thirty-four morphological and eight physicochemical traits were recorded. Sour cherry genotypes had a high variability in traits related to fruit characters such as fruit weight, stone volume, total anthocyanin content and total soluble solid. As a result, sour cherry genotypes exhibit total phenolic content and antioxidant activity higher than “Ciganymeggy” and “Erdi botermo” cultivars. Principal component analysis (PCA) suggested that leaf dimensions, fruit weight, stone weight, and stone volume could be sufficient for the identification of genotypes. Hierarchical cluster analysis classified sour cherry genotypes and “Ciganymeggy” and “Erdi botermo” cultivars into two main clusters. The first cluster was characterized by a upright tree vigour, depressed fruit pistil end, reniform shape of fruit, high sweetness, dark red juice, flower high length and diameter, fruit and stone weight and length and diameter, total soluble solid, low total phenolic content, high total flavonoid content and high total anthocyanin content

Genotyping-by-sequencing reveals the impact of restocking on wild common carp populations of the southern Caspian basin

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Anthropogenic and natural fragmentations shape the spatial distribution and genetic diversity of roe deer in the marginal area of its geographic range

Habitat destruction and fragmentation are major factors in the destruction of genetic diversity and affect the movement behavior of the Roe deer population in the remaining habitats. Here, we study the population and landscape genetics of Capreolus capreolus (roe deer) in northern and northwestern Iran using twelve polymorphism microsatellite markers. From 111 total specimens, 63 had successful extraction (6 feces, 35 tissues, 9 bones, and 13 antlers). We considered 30 microsatellite polymorphic loci, of which only 12 were amplified for our further analysis. For genetic diversity analysis, the Weir-Cockerham method was applied to measure the inbreeding coefficient (FIS) and fixation index (FST) for each locus as well as for each population. For landscape genetics, the susceptibility patterns of genetic variations were assessed using three hypotheses including isolation by distance (IBD), isolation by environment (IBE), isolation by resistance (IBR), and individual landscape genetic analysis. A habitat suitability map as an indicator of landscape resistance was constructed from several species distribution models (SDMs) algorithms including Generalized Boosting Models (GBM), Maximum Entropy (Maxent), Random Forest (RF), Generalized Linear Model (GLM), Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) and artificial neural networks (ANN) and an ensemble model. Our estimated FIs index showed that the Golestan, Arasbaran, and Guilan populations had the highest and lowest genetic diversity among roe deer populations. According to the Fst criterion, our results showed that Golestan and East Azarbaijan (Arasbaran) had the highest and Mazandaran had the lowest genetic distance patterns. Our results do not suggest that there is high genetic differentiation for roe deer in the region, with high levels of gene flow between study areas. We found that geographic distance has no significant relationship with genetic distance and that there is no significant relationship between the ecological niche non-similarity matrix and the genetic distance matrix. The most influential factors affecting gene flow in roe deer were aspect and elevation variables. The analysis suggests that the landscape has no significant influence on the structuring of the studied population and shows little genetic differentiation

Integration of morphometrics and machine learning enables accurate distinction between wild and farmed common carp

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Isolation and Characterization of Novel Microsatellite Markers in Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.)

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) has been cultivated from ancient times for its economic, ornamental and medicinal properties globally. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of 12 polymorphic microsatellite markers from a repeat-enriched genomic library of Punica granatum L. The genetic diversity of these loci was assessed in 60 genotypes of Punica granatum L. All loci were variable: the number of polymorphic alleles per locus ranged from two to five (average 2.9). The observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.15 to 0.87 and 0.29 to 0.65, respectively. The polymorphic information content ranged from 0.26 to 0.61 (average: 0.43). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that polymorphic microsatellite markers have been reported for P. granatum L. These new markers should allow studies of the population structure and genetic diversity of pomegranate to be performed in the future

Morphological and molecular variability in some Iranian almond genotypes and related Prunus species and their potentials for rootstock breeding

41 Pag., 6 Fig., 5 Tabl. The definitive version is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03044238In this study, in order to know the variability for a rootstock breeding program genetic diversity and relationships among 55 Iranian almond genotypes and seven related Prunus species were investigated. Morphological and molecular analyses were used. Principal component analysis showed that three components explained 67.6% of the total morphological variation for the first year and 68.06% for the second year of the study. Leaf traits were predominant in the first component and contributed most of the total variation. Leaf length and width, as well as, leaf area were highly correlated with each other and correlated to vigor. Also a negative correlation was found between leaf length/width ratio and vigor. Ward’s method was used to construct cluster from morphological data which allocated individuals into their respective species. Out of 100 pre-screened RAPD primers, 16 with reproducible bands and maximum polymorphism were selected. Two-hundred and sixty bands were scored of which 250 of them were polymorphic. Average value of polymorphism per primer was 95.81% and maximum value for polymorphism (100%) was obtained from TIBMBA-14, TIBMBA-17, TIBMBB-05, TIBMBB-08, TIBMBD-09, and TIBMBD-10. On the other hand, the minimum value was obtained from TIBMBB-16 (86%). Primer TIBMBB-5 gave the maximum number of bands (25 fragments) and the minimum obtained from TIBMBE-18 (11 fragments). Genetic similarity based on Jaccard’s coefficient ranged from 0.28 to 0.79 with an average of 0.53. Molecular analysis revealed a high degree of separation among samples regarding their geographical origin. Correlation between two approaches was low (R =−0.38). High molecular and morphological variability indicated that this collection includes rich and valuable plant materials for almond rootstock breeding.We are grateful for the financial supports provided by the Center of Excellence for stone fruits root stock breeding program of the University of Tehran.Peer reviewe

Morphological and molecular variability in some Iranian almond genotypes and related Prunus species and their potentials for rootstock breeding

In this study, in order to know the variability for a rootstock breeding program genetic diversity and relationships among 55 Iranian almond genotypes and seven related Prunus species were investigated. Morphological and molecular analyses were used. Principal component analysis showed that three components explained 67.6% of the total morphological variation for the first year and 68.06% for the second year of the study. Leaf traits were predominant in the first component and contributed most of the total variation. Leaf length and width, as well as, leaf area were highly correlated with each other and correlated to vigor. Also a negative correlation was found between leaf length/width ratio and vigor. Ward's method was used to construct cluster from morphological data which allocated individuals into their respective species. Out of 100 pre-screened RAPD primers, 16 with reproducible bands and maximum polymorphism were selected. Two-hundred and sixty bands were scored of which 250 of them were polymorphic. Average value of polymorphism per primer was 95.81% and maximum value for polymorphism (100%) was obtained from TIBMBA-14, TIBMBA-17, TIBMBB-05, TIBMBB-08, TIBMBD-09, and TIBMBD-10. On the other hand, the minimum value was obtained from TIBMBB-16 (86%). Primer TIBMBB-5 gave the maximum number of bands (25 fragments) and the minimum obtained from TIBMBE-18 (11 fragments). Genetic similarity based on Jaccard's coefficient ranged from 0.28 to 0.79 with an average of 0.53. Molecular analysis revealed a high degree of separation among samples regarding their geographical origin. Correlation between two approaches was low (R =−0.38). High molecular and morphological variability indicated that this collection includes rich and valuable plant materials for almond rootstock breeding

Phenotypic and molecular variability and genetic structure of Iranian almond cultivars

In this study, we used 20 morphological traits (during two consecutive growing seasons) and 11 microsatellite markers to assess the morphological and molecular variability and structure of the almond (Prunus dulcis (Mill.) D.A. Webb). Seventy one promising Iranian genotypes and three foreign reference cultivars (Ferragnes, Supernova, and Touno) were evaluated in this study. Kernel/shell ratio, kernel width/thickness ratio, softness of shell, nut weight, and kernel thickness were highly variable. Strong positive and, occasionally, negative correlations were detected among nut and kernel traits. Morphological traits were categorized by principle-components analysis (PCA) into 6 components which explained 88.1 % of the total variation. On the basis of the first two PCA axes, the 2-dimensional PCA plot grouped the samples according to their phenotypic characteristics. The results from molecular analyses (including a Bayesian clustering approach and a molecular phylogenetic network) did not correspond to morphological groupings. In this paper we report, for the first time, morphological and molecular variability and genetic structure of Iranian almond germplasm. Our results showed that model-based cluster analysis (using Structure software) was very appropriate for study of genetic relationships among almond accessions and can be used for study of the genetic structure of Prunus germplasm as well

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.), a monomorphic or polymorphic species?

Saffron (Crocus sativus L.) which contains exceptional anti-cancer properties is presently the world�s most expensive spice. Iran is known as the original habitat of Crocus L. and a significant source of high-quality cultivated saffron production and export. Considering the importance of this species, we used 27 microsatellite markers to assess molecular variability and discriminating capacity of markers regarding their effectiveness in establishing genetic relationships in Iranian Crocus ecotypes. Thirty eight Iranian cultivated saffron ecotypes and 29 wild allies were evaluated in this research. The results from molecular analyses, including a molecular phylogenetic network and RB analysis, revealed two major groups and five subgroups, regardless of their geographical origins. Also, the results showed a clear distinction between C. sativus and other species of Crocus genus, taking into account their close relationship with C. speciosus and C. hausknechtii, which are assumed to be the two closest relatives of Iranian cultivated saffron among species studied. In this paper, we observed for the first time extensive genetic diversity among Iranian C. sativus despite their asexual reproduction. Considering suitable climatic conditions in Iran for cultivating saffron and the country�s leading high-quality production of Crocus sativus worldwide, studies on great genetic variability among Iranian C. sativus ecotypes as well as wild relatives native to Iran will further highlight the value of this crop. In addition, our results provide valuable information for genetic improvement, reduction of strong genetic erosion, and conservation of costly heritable resources of C. sativus in future breeding program