Genetic relationships among fruit cultivars and host plants of Indian lac insect in ber (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Ziziphus mauritiana </i>Lam.) revealed by RAPD and ISSR markers

Abstract

170-177The genetic relationship among 26 fruit cultivars of Zizizphus mauritiana Lam. (ber), 6 high resin-yielding lac insect hosts of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Z. mauritiana and 2 other Ziziphus spp. used as lac hosts was compared using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers with an aim to identify genetically similar cultivars for utilization in fruit as well as in lac production. RAPD (15) and ISSR primers (11) employed in the study revealed 98.82 and 98.86% polymorphisms, respectively among all the ber accessions used. The study revealed that 11 fruit cultivars had &gt;50% genetic similarity with 6 high-yielding lac host genotypes. The UPGMA dendrogram and principal coordinate analysis clustered 11 fruit cultivars and the lac hosts within same cluster. The AMOVA analysis revealed very low genetic variations among the groups of fruit cultivars and high-yielding lac hosts, but high genetic variations within accessions of the groups. The results suggest that 11 ber cultivars may be useful not only as a source for fruit harvesting but also as potential high-yielding lac host plants, thus providing lac growers with more options of economic returns than the wild-type hosts presently used